Fifa boss pledges ‘culture of dialogue’ after World Cup sell-off uproar

Fifa’s embattled president, Gianni Infantino, said on Thursday that he is committed to a fresh culture of openness at the soccer body that is “not about generating positive headlines”.

Two months into a deep rift for global soccer because of Infantino’s now-dropped $4.2bn (R69bn) World Cup sell-off plan, he offered to his critics this week an independent review of how Fifa is run and makes decisions.

“I have received positive messages about it from different parts of the world, and it is important that we keep listening to each other,” he wrote in an Instagram post from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the Arabian Gulf Cup.

Infantino will chair an October 15 meeting of the 37-member Fifa council that also will be asked to approve consultation with the 211 member federations and six continental soccer bodies on “how to further strengthen Fifa’s decision-making processes”.

The 211 members already effectively own Fifa, a Switzerland-based not-for-profit organisation that has at least $5bn in cash reserves after a financially successful men’s World Cup in North America.

Fifa’s ruling council includes three vice presidents — European soccer leader Aleksander Ceferin, North America’s Victor Montagliani and Asia’s Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa — who have led opposition to Infantino during the furore over his proposal to create a commercial spinoff part-owned by investors fronted by Josh Kushner.

“There must be a culture of dialogue, of listening to each other and respecting one another,” Infantino wrote on Thursday about the council meeting in Zurich. “This is not about generating positive headlines, it is about doing what is right for the game.”

Infantino’s presidency since 2016 has created most turmoil when proposing multibillion-dollar commercial plans without fully consulting continental bodies like Uefa, which succeeded in stopping them.

Fifa often seemed like an executive one-man leadership as Infantino built closer ties to US President Donald Trump around this year’s World Cup. Fifa created a peace prize to award Trump last year and allowed US striker Folarin Balogun to evade a mandatory ban at the tournament after an intervention from the White House.

Infantino’s secretive plan to sell at least 20% of Fifa’s commercial rights in a deal anchored by Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law, provoked the soccer body’s biggest crisis since anti-corruption arrests in 2015 that led to trials in New York.

The 211 national federations were offered $20m each to approve the creation of the Fifa Forward Enterprise subsidiary. Uefa, North America’s Concacaf and the Asian Football Confedration countered by saying Fifa could afford to give each federation a $10m dividend just from its reserves.

Now Infantino, who faces an election challenge ahead of a March 18 vote by Fifa members in Morocco, insists he is ready to listen to soccer officials.

“I have never been more determined and committed in doing that,” he wrote on Instagram. “Fifa is always engaged. I am always engaged and I want to hear how we can continue to grow football for the benefit of everybody, everywhere.”

Associated Press