European football leaders were gathering Wednesday with time pressing to find a candidate and shape their strategy for trying to oust Gianni Infantino as president of FIFA. UEFA has called its 55 member federations to a previously scheduled summit on Thursday in Berlin that arrives in the midst of European efforts to get a new leader for football’s world body. Infantino’s divisive World Cup private investment plan – that failed within days of being revealed in July – pushed UEFA to act on longstanding mistrust of its former employee’s increasingly executive presidency at FIFA.
UEFA’s longer-term plans include preparing a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland for possible financial mismanagement in the World Cup sell-off deal. It has asked courts in the United States to authorise discovery of evidence. Europe’s 55 count for more than a quarter of FIFA’s 211 member federations that can vote in the election on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco.
Research by The news agency suggests Infantino already has about 90 votes pledged – albeit before any potential opponent is known. Still, UEFA is not a united bloc. Infantino has support promised from Azerbaijan, the home country of a close aide, and Latvia.
On Wednesday he met with football and government officials in the Czech capital Prague. First, UEFA and its allies worldwide need to agree on at least one candidate to challenge Infantino by the November 18 deadline to enter the race. UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin was joined in August by his fellow FIFA vice presidents from Asia and North America in denouncing Infantino for deception and breach of trust over the World Cup sell-off plan.
Still, neither Ceferin nor his counterparts at the AFC and CONCACAF, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain and Victor Montagliani of Canada, currently look set to be on the FIFA ballot. Ceferin has long dismissed any talk of himself running to lead FIFA, though he said last month at UEFA meetings in Greece there were “many, many” potential candidates. Montagliani is expected to focus on his own re-election at CONCACAF in February.
Sheikh Salman has been Infantino’s FIFA election opponent before. He had been favourite in a five-man campaign that Infantino eventually won in February 2016. Speculation has often pointed to Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, a close ally of Ceferin.
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