FIFA President Infantino apologises to council but critics remain unhappy

Gianni Infantino apologised to his toughest critics but provided no new details or documents on FIFA issues that most concern them at a showdown meeting of its ruling council on Thursday.

No documents about the $4.2bn World Cup sell-off plan he launched and dropped in July. No details about the Folarin Balogun red-card case at the World Cup and how US President Donald Trump intervened to help the national team forward.

World football’s ruling body FIFA will, however, review whether to continue awarding the peace prize that was created to be given to Trump in December.

Pressed by European football officials for written evidence about his secretive private equity plan for the World Cup that provoked a global rift, Infantino asked them to submit written questions, FIFA Vice President Debbie Hewitt said after the three-and-a-half-hour meeting.

“The man has to answer those questions. If he doesn’t answer those questions, no, he is not fit to be the FIFA president,” said Hewitt, who leads the English Football Association.

European football’s ruling body UEFA is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election in March and heard little to change that view Thursday.

“No satisfactory answers were provided,” said German football chief Bernd Neuendorf, one of eight UEFA delegates in the 37-member FIFA Council that Infantino chairs. It had not met since Infantino provoked the crisis.

“We need a person of integrity, someone who can be expected to restore the reputation of the association, which has undoubtedly been lost,” Neuendorf told reporters.

Infantino did start the meeting by apologising to his council colleagues for blindsiding them and creating a furore over his private investor plan with venture capitalist Joshua Kushner that was revealed in media reports nine days after the World Cup final in July.

“He said that with some contrition,” Hewitt said.

UEFA also has asked courts in the United States for the right to get evidence for a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland. The court filings allege possible mismanagement of FIFA finances in the value he put on the intended subsidiary running tournament commercial rights.

It was to be at least 20 percent owned by investors led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner.