{"id":728584,"date":"2026-08-05T19:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/728584\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T19:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:36:10","slug":"luis-figo-blasts-deceitful-infantino-and-says-fifa-president-must-quit-to-save-football-gianni-infantino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/728584\/","title":{"rendered":"Lu\u00eds Figo blasts \u2018deceitful\u2019 Infantino and says Fifa president must quit to \u2018save football\u2019 | Gianni Infantino"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portugal legend Lu\u00eds Figo has described Gianni Infantino\u2019s ill-fated scheme to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors as \u201cthe lowest, most deceitful and cravenly self-interested behaviour I have ever witnessed\u201d and called on the Fifa president to resign.<\/p>\n

Infantino was forced to scrap his controversial proposal<\/a> after a fierce backlash that was led by Uefa, with the 56-year-old now battling for his future having called an emergency meeting of Fifa staff on Wednesday as pressure on him mounts.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the Jordan Football Association president, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, accused Fifa<\/a> of blackmail by threatening to withhold financial assistance from his federation if it refused to back the president\u2019s bid for re-election. That came after the former Arsenal manager Ars\u00e8ne Wenger, who is Fifa\u2019s chief of global football development, issued a statement distancing himself from the plan that said the decision to withdraw it was \u201cabsolutely necessary and beyond question\u201d.<\/p>\n

Figo, the former Barcelona and Real Madrid winger who won 127 caps for Portugal, has now joined the chorus of criticism and accused Infantino of having \u201cdebased the office of Fifa president that he promised to elevate\u201d since taking over in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could write 10,000 words on the problems at Fifa. But the solution needs only three: Infantino must go,\u201d he wrote in the Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has lied, deceived and tried to feather his own nest at the expense of the game he is supposed to serve. He has lost the support of his senior staff, his closest advisers, the vast majority of people who devote their lives to this sport and even, it would seem, the Fifa Peace Prize winner [Donald Trump]. It is too late to save his dignity but it is not too late to save football. He should go. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Figo, who has been a football adviser to Uefa since 2017, cited Infantino\u2019s lack of transparency over his attempts to push through the private equity deal that would have reportedly led to an increase in his salary to $30m a year as more evidence he is unfit to govern world football.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not honest when you fail to mention that, after you have delivered the head of the World Cup on a platter to your mates in DC, they are going to give you a job worth five times your current salary,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this comes as a surprise when you consider the litany of abuses he has inflicted on football\u2019s reputation; from suspending and reversing disciplinary decisions to breaking the laws of the game over a half-time show, nothing gets in the way of pleasing his friends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portugal legend Lu\u00eds Figo has described Gianni Infantino\u2019s ill-fated scheme to sell off stakes in the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-728584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}