Uefa President Slams Fifa’s Embattled Leader

Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin has strongly criticized Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s failed plan to sell stakes in the World Cup, calling it ‘even worse’ than the doomed Super League proposal.

Speaking in an interview with the podcast The Rest is Politics: Leading, Ceferin emphasized that the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme, which was shelved amid widespread opposition in August, is more damaging than the breakaway Super League that was abandoned in 2021.

‘I think this plan is even worse than the Super League plan,’ Ceferin said. ‘In the first case, super-important clubs wanted to do their own league, which is wrong and would destroy football. But in this case, football would be literally sold.’

Ceferin believes that the FFE plan is ‘dead’ and that the most important thing is that it was stopped. ‘It’s hard to imagine what kind of people would sell the sport that belongs to everyone,’ he added.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Infantino had held talks about running the Super League under Fifa branding. However, Ceferin is confident that any revival of that plan would be decades away. ‘It might happen in 20 years, you never know, but for now we cooperate with everyone in a great way,’ he said.

Infantino spent much of the weekend courting support from Concacaf members at a meeting in the Dominican Republic, infuriating many of those present. Ceferin, who revealed the pair had not been in contact since the FFE scandal broke, believes the Fifa president’s path to survival is narrowing.

‘I didn’t speak with him, he didn’t contact me since this happened,’ Ceferin said. ‘But there are two options. One option is that he realises that he doesn’t have the support, and that’s not only political support of the ones who vote, but the political support of the football community, the political support of fans, the political support of the players, former players, coaches.’

Ceferin also warned that if Infantino decides to run for re-election next March, he will face an opponent. ‘I don’t know yet who,’ he added.

The Concacaf president, Victor Montagliani, has been tipped as a potential opponent for Infantino if he chooses to run in Rabat.

Ceferin has proponents of his own but ruled out making his own bid for the Fifa presidency. ‘My credibility is much, much, much higher if I’m not interested in the position,’ he said.

The Slovenian is expected to run unopposed for a fourth term at the helm of Uefa, with the election due next April.

Asked whether Infantino had become too close to Donald Trump, with whom he forged a close relationship before the recent World Cup, Ceferin said: ‘To be honest, I think you are naive if you think that a politician like that, or any politician, is your good friend. The moment you are a problem, you stop being a friend of a politician.’

Ceferin also expressed his concern over the recent red card controversy involving the US striker Folarin Balogun, which was later suspended. ‘That was more than shocking,’ he said. ‘We have rules and if you don’t respect your own rules, then the game doesn’t make any sense.’

Meanwhile, in a fresh show of European opposition to Infantino, the six Nordic football associations issued a statement saying they had ‘lost confidence in the Fifa president and have serious concerns about the governance and high-level decision making of the organisation.’

They asked for binding assurances that Fifa will never again ‘open its governance or competitions to private ownership’ and called for a full third-party review into the FFE scheme.

Earlier in August, the Norwegian Football Federation was the first member association to call directly for Infantino to step down.