Gianni Infantino, the embattled president of soccer’s governing body FIFA, has abandoned his controversial plan to create a $20 billion company that would control the commercial rights to its events, principally the World Cup.
In a statement released late Friday, Infantino said it had “become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place.”
The survival of Infantino, who is up for re-election for a fourth term as president at the FIFA Congress in March, is now in doubt.
Infantino said, “Our purpose has always been – and will always be – to unite and improve. Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game.”
The climbdown by Infantino follows a threat by European countries, represented by the continent’s soccer governing body UEFA, to boycott all FIFA events, including the World Cup, if the plan moved forward.
Opposition to Infantino’s plan had also come from Concacaf, which governs soccer in North, Central America and the Caribbean, and the sport’s governing body in Asia, the Asian Football Confederation.
Resistance to the plan had also come from within FIFA. Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino’s senior adviser on global strategy and governance, resigned over the issue, saying the proposal was “a bad deal” for soccer and would “mortgage” its future.
Then on Friday, the organization’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said its own administration had been “deceived” about the project. Lamour described the plan as “the project of one person,” and said, “the time has now come for [soccer’s] political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.”
Lamour added that had a duty of loyalty to “certain values” and supporting his colleagues. “If that means I lose my job, then so be it. I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”