Mexico breaks from Concacaf to back Infantino as Fifa split widens

Mexico’s Football Federation has broken ranks with its own regional confederation to publicly back Fifa president Gianni Infantino, deepening a split within world football’s governing body over his handling of a shelved plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.

The Mexican FA (FMF), which co-hosted this year’s World Cup, issued a statement supporting Infantino’s leadership despite Concacaf — the confederation that governs football across North and Central America and the Caribbean — calling for what it termed a “comprehensive reckoning” with his presidency.

“The FMF supports president Infantino’s leadership in continuing to promote the development of football through institutional strengthening,” the federation said. It added that it would “neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside of that institutional framework”, aligning itself with Infantino’s own call to “collectively continue developing football for the benefit of the 211 member associations”.

Argentina and Caf add their weight

Argentina, beaten finalists at this year’s World Cup, have also thrown their support behind the Fifa president. The Argentine Football Association praised Infantino for acknowledging and apologising for his “errors”, describing his decade in charge as “centred on the development of soccer worldwide and institutional strength based on a clear, stable, and transparent governance model”.

South America’s Conmebol, of which Argentina is a member, echoed the position that any move against Infantino must involve a vote of all 211 Fifa member associations, though it stopped short of full-throated backing. Conmebol said it wanted to “express its concern about the repeated unilateral actions taken without resorting to dialogue or the institutional mechanisms provided for dealing with this type of situation”.

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) is understood to be unanimously behind Infantino, giving him the backing of two entire continental bodies alongside individual associations in Mexico and Argentina.

Uefa holds firm as boycott threat lingers

The row was sparked by Infantino’s now-abandoned proposal to sell commercial stakes in the World Cup to outside investors, a plan that alarmed European football chiefs and prompted Uefa to threaten a boycott of Fifa business. Despite the plan being shelved, Uefa has indicated its conditions still have not been met and that a boycott remains possible.

Concacaf’s stance puts it at odds with one of its most prominent members in Mexico, highlighting how the fallout has cut across confederation lines rather than uniting them. The dispute comes ahead of Infantino’s bid for re-election as Fifa president in March, with the controversy now hanging over that vote.

Read more: Trump vows to back Infantino as FA prepares to withdraw support for Fifa chief

Sources

• BBC Sport
• The Independent

This is an independent report written from the facts across the sources named above.