{"id":594051,"date":"2026-08-24T02:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T02:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/594051\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T02:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T02:26:15","slug":"ceferin-brands-infantinos-failed-world-cup-plan-as-even-worse-than-the-super-league-uefa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/594051\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceferin brands Infantino\u2019s failed World Cup plan as \u2018even worse than the Super League\u2019 | Uefa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, has described Gianni Infantino\u2019s doomed attempt to sell stakes in the World Cup as \u201ceven worse than the Super League plan\u201d and warned his embattled Fifa<\/a> counterpart that he will face an opponent if he runs for re-election next March.<\/p>\n

Ceferin has led Uefa\u2019s firm collective stance against the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme, which was shelved amid widespread opposition at the start of August. Uefa are pushing for Infantino to quit, also drawing on support from Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation, and are yet to drop a threat to boycott Fifa competitions while talks are under way with Concacaf to set up a combined Nations League tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the podcast The Rest is Politics: Leading<\/a>, Ceferin denounced Infantino\u2019s project as more damaging than the breakaway Super League that was shelved in 2021 after large-scale protests. \u201cI think this plan is even worse than the Super League plan,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the first case, super-important clubs wanted to do their own league, which is wrong and would destroy football. But in this case, football would be literally sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely sure that the [FFE] plan is dead. For me, the most important thing is that we stopped another try to sell the sport. It\u2019s hard to imagine what kind of people would sell the sport that belongs to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month it was reported that Infantino had held talks about running the Super League under Fifa branding<\/a>. Ceferin is confident that any revival of that plan would be decades away. \u201cIt might happen in 20 years, you never know, but for now we cooperate with everyone in a great way. I\u2019m sure it cannot happen in the next 10 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Infantino spent much of the weekend courting support from Concacaf members<\/a> at a meeting in the Dominican Republic, infuriating many of those present. Ceferin, who revealed the pair had not been in contact since the FFE scandal broke, believes the Fifa president\u2019s path to survival is narrowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t speak with him, he didn\u2019t contact me since this happened,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there are two options. One option is that he realises that he doesn\u2019t have the support, and that\u2019s not only political support of the ones who vote, but the political support of the football community, the political support of fans, the political support of the players, former players, coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the second option [is] that he goes to the elections in March, but in that case, I think he will have a candidate against him. I don\u2019t know yet who.\u201d The Concacaf president, Victor Montagliani, has been tipped as a potential opponent for Infantino if he chooses to run in Rabat.<\/p>\n

Ceferin has proponents of his own but ruled out making his own bid for the Fifa presidency. \u201cMy credibility is much, much, much higher if I\u2019m not interested in the position,\u201d he said. The Slovenian is expected to run unopposed for a fourth term at the helm of Uefa<\/a>, with the election due next April.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Infantino had become too close to Donald Trump, with whom he forged a close relationship before the recent World Cup, Ceferin said: \u201cTo be honest, I think you are naive if you think that a politician like that, or any politician, is your good friend. The moment you are a problem, you stop being a friend of a politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That friendship came under the spotlight last month when Trump said he had called Infantino to ask for a review of the red card given to the US striker Folarin Balogun, whose ban for the last-16 tie against Belgium was later suspended. \u201cThat was more than shocking,\u201d Ceferin said. \u201cWe have rules and if you don\u2019t respect your own rules, then the game doesn\u2019t make any sense. That\u2019s shocking and, trust me, almost everybody was shocked. Just not everybody dared to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in a fresh show of European opposition to Infantino, the six Nordic football associations issued a statement saying they had \u201clost confidence in the Fifa president and have serious concerns about the governance and high-level decision making of the organisation\u201d. They asked for binding assurances that Fifa will never again \u201copen its governance or competitions to private ownership\u201d and called for a full third-party review into the FFE scheme.<\/p>\n

Earlier in August the Norwegian Football Federation was the first member association to call directly for Infantino to step down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Infantino travelled straight from the Dominican Republic to Paris on Sunday, attending the closing ceremony of the Esports World Cup. Television footage showed him exchanging greetings with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, has described Gianni Infantino\u2019s doomed attempt to sell stakes in the World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-594051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}