Infantino, 56, has come under increasing pressure to step down as president over his now-abandoned plan to secure private investment in FIFA tournaments, including the World Cup.
UEFA is “likely” to withdraw its threat to boycott FIFA tournaments as the two conditions it was seeking from world football’s governing body following president Gianni Infantino’s failed attempt to sell off stakes in the World Cup have been met, a source told AFP on Wednesday. UEFA, led by their president Aleksander Ceferin, had described the proposal in scathing terms, labelling it a “shady, opaque backroom deal”.
However, with UEFA’s national associations meeting in Monaco on Thursday ahead of the draws for the Champions League and other club competitions, it appears that European football’s governing body is happy the second one has been settled satisfactorily. A second source told AFP that the boycott threat — which had been seen as pivotal in forcing Infantino’s humiliating U-turn — had to be dealt with urgently given that the Under-20 Women’s World Cup is being held in Poland from September 5 to 27.
Despite Infantino withdrawing the plan only days after its launch, UEFA had said they were still not content and their threat to boycott FIFA events remained in place. They said their demand that the plan be shelved had been met, but that they had not received assurances “that such attempts to disfigure the game in this way will never be made again”. “Yes it is likely,” the source told AFP on Wednesday, regarding the possibility of dropping the boycott threat. “It is 10 days until the start of the Under-20 Women’s World Cup,” said the second source.
