{"id":568753,"date":"2026-08-14T11:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568753\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:34:08","slug":"new-zealand-break-ranks-with-oceania-as-fifas-infantino-divide-grows-world-cup-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568753\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand break ranks with Oceania as FIFA\u2019s Infantino divide grows | World Cup News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oceania have offered support to Gianni Infantino, but New Zealand have gone against their own confederation in FIFA row.<\/p>\n

Published On 14 Aug 202614 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

New Zealand has become the latest nation to withdraw its support for FIFA President Gianni Infantino\u2019s re-election bid over his aborted commercial rights stake sale plan, while Oceania\u2019s confederation cautiously backed the \u2060governing body\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

Infantino has faced open revolt after three confederations \u2013 Europe\u2019s UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF (North and Central America and Caribbean) \u2013 called for a review<\/a> of his leadership and attacked his conduct over the plan to bring private investment into FIFA competitions.<\/p>\n

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Infantino will seek re-election for a fourth term in \u2060charge of the global governing body at the FIFA Congress next year, with the African<\/a> and South American confederations declaring their continued support.<\/p>\n

New Zealand, the only Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) nation to qualify for this year\u2019s World Cup, said on Friday it had withdrawn support for Infantino and that the review of the stake sale proposal should be independent due to a loss of confidence and trust in FIFA\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve called for an independent review specifically because what we don\u2019t \u200cwant to see is a sort of in-house quick washover of this,\u201d New Zealand Football (NZF) Chief Executive Andrew Pragnell told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn independent review is something else that has been called for by other confederations that will help restore some of the trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

The OFC said in a statement that it welcomed FIFA\u2019s decision to withdraw the proposal and that football in the Oceania region had grown under the current FIFA leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cOFC recognises the progress achieved over the last decade in advancing football development in Oceania under FIFA\u2019s leadership and encourages FIFA to use the review as an opportunity to identify and implement any changes that may be necessary,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

What allies does Infantino have?<\/p>\n

Swiss Infantino had proposed carving off \u2060the commercial rights to the World Cup and selling 20 percent to private investors to raise about $4.2bn before \u2060a U-turn following the furore.<\/p>\n

The proposal came with a $20m grant for member associations for the next funding cycle, an amount that could have been doubled if they signed the deal.<\/p>\n

Following a crisis meeting in Morocco last week, FIFA apologised to its 211 member associations for mistakes in the handling of the proposal and said its leadership had \u2060full support for Infantino.<\/p>\n

Despite the opposition of the three confederations, which represent 136 of the 211 member associations who will vote in the FIFA presidential election in March, Infantino still has plenty of allies in the game.<\/p>\n

Six \u2060heads of Arab national football associations, including Qatar and 2030 World Cup cohost Morocco, firmly \u2060backed him<\/a> on Thursday, saying they appreciated his \u201csustained efforts to advance football globally\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Confederation of African Football\u2019s executive committee also unanimously confirmed its support for Infantino, though, there is no guarantee of a bloc vote from all 54 members.<\/p>\n

Pragnell said an independent review into the scrapped FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal needed to shed light on decision-making and oversight at FIFA.<\/p>\n

It should \u200calso identify who was involved in the plan for Thrive Capital, a firm with close familial links to US President Donald Trump, to play a leading role in the venture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the scope needs to be considered really carefully, but what\u2019s most important is that all confederations should agree \u200con \u200cthe scope, and it needs to get under way with urgency,\u201d Pragnell told Reuters.<\/p>\n

AFC member Australia has also called for an independent review alongside the Asian bloc, without publicly expressing a position on Infantino\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on what we\u2019ve seen, including [Australia\u2019s] commitment to the AFC statement, we\u2019re strongly aligned,\u201d Pragnell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oceania have offered support to Gianni Infantino, but New Zealand have gone against their own confederation in FIFA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1758,2024,5213,111,43,139,69,2022,213,1769,1430,1431,94856],"class_list":["post-568753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asia-pacific","tag-europe","tag-football","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-switzerland","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}