Remember when pretty much everyone thought Gianni Infantino's days were numbered as Fifa president? It is little more than two months since news broke of Infantino's Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, the plan to sell off commercial rights in the World Cup to a private equity firm. Infantino, who had seemed impregnable as the head of world football's governing body, suddenly appeared not only to be vulnerable, but in fact in an untenable position.
Yet, with 40 days to go until the 18 November deadline for nominations for the presidential election, senior figures in world football now firmly believe the 56-year-old may well be unopposed. Uefa thought that FFE had given it the chance to cut the head off the snake. Except Uefa did not quite have the necessary weapons to pull it off, to overthrow a figure who has built up considerable levels of support in the rest of the world.
No election, no challenge, just another coronation at the Fifa Congress in Rabat on 18 March. Right now, you cannot shake the feeling that Infantino has won. Since summoning the Fifa management board to Rabat on 5 August to discuss FFE, Infantino has been on a tour of the world to cement his position.
To Colombia for the inauguration of the country's new president, Abelardo de la Espriella. Then visiting a Fifa-funded youth football tournament in the Dominican Republic. At the weekend, he was at the Fifa Asean Cup final in Jakarta, Indonesia.
And this week, an African football conference in Cape Verde. It has been business as usual for the Swiss-Italian. But there remains a rudimentary split in world football.
Uefa, Concacaf and Asia against Infantino; Africa, South America and Oceania in support. It raises the prospect that Infantino will be returned despite only carrying the backing of roughly half of Fifa's 211 members. It is the funding model which has made Infantino's position so impenetrable, even in the face of accusations that he had worked against the wider interests of the game.
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