Fifa has issued a sharp rebuttal against what it describes as a deliberate and continuous campaign aimed at damaging the reputation of the organization and its president, Gianni Infantino. This response comes in the wake of a Daily Telegraph report alleging that Uefa provided a severance payment to a woman following an affair with Infantino during his time as general secretary.
Fifa dismissed these accusations as false and stated that speculative reporting should not be treated as factual. Infantino is currently facing significant pushback from Uefa and various European football federations following his failed attempt to launch the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) project, which proposed selling a 21% stake in commercial and ticketing rights to a private investor.
Uefa officials have openly stated a lack of trust in the president, and Lise Klaveness, the head of the Norwegian Football Federation, has formally requested that he step down. Uefa has also indicated that a potential boycott of Fifa events remains a possibility. Fifa countered this by asserting that Infantino retains the democratic support of its member associations and that critics should not use misinformation to bypass established leadership protocols.
While European opposition grows, Infantino still holds strong support from the Confederation of African Football (Caf), South America’s Conmebol, and the Mexican Football Federation. These groups maintain that any move to remove the president must be decided by a vote of all 211 member countries.
