Infantino faces explosive FIFA Council meeting in Zurich

Gianni Infantino walks into one of the most delicate meetings of his presidency on Thursday in Zurich. The FIFA president will sit down with the organisation's Council in a session several attendees expect to be explosive, with the abandoned World Cup sell-off plan, the Folarin Balogun affair and the peace prize awarded to Donald Trump as the main flashpoints.

• The FIFA Council meets in Zurich with serious internal divisions on display.
• Infantino must answer for the failed FIFA Forward Enterprise project and the Balogun case.
• The presidents of UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC want an independent governance review.
• A report points to a second salary for Infantino in 2024, which FIFA denies.
• The Swiss executive is heading towards an uncontested re-election in March.

Why the FIFA Council meeting could turn hostile

During the summer, Infantino repeatedly rejected calls for an extraordinary general meeting of the Council after the emergence of the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposals. That project would have handed the management of World Cup commercial rights to a third party, an operation that was scrapped amid internal criticism. Now the president faces his detractors for the first time since then at the organisation's headquarters.

Expectations are high. One attendee has privately admitted that the talks could turn into an institutional storm. The meeting comes at a time of clear strain for the Swiss executive, who is being challenged by several confederations with an election cycle on the horizon.

What Ceferin, Montagliani and Sheikh Salman want in Zurich

Aleksander Ceferin, Victor Montagliani and Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, the presidents of UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation, have previously urged Infantino to resign. All three will be in attendance and intend to keep pushing for an external and independent audit of FIFA's governance.

Last month Infantino responded to letters from the three officials by promising to commission an external review of the organisation's future. No details have been released about its scope or who would carry it out, and scepticism is growing among critics about whether it would be genuinely independent.

The three uncomfortable items on Infantino's agenda

The agenda circulated by FIFA last month includes three sensitive files. The first is FIFA Forward Enterprise, the attempt to outsource the exploitation of World Cup rights that was ultimately withdrawn. The second is the Folarin Balogun case, which has sparked controversy over the striker's international eligibility. The third is the decision to hand the inaugural FIFA peace prize to Donald Trump, a move that triggered significant debate inside and outside the organisation.

The second salary controversy involving the president

On top of those three issues, a report in The Times this week claims that Infantino received a second salary of about £1.3m in 2024, in addition to the £3.9m declared in FIFA's accounts. Documents from the US Internal Revenue Service show that a FIFA subsidiary in charge of running last summer's World Cup paid the president $1.76m, an amount that does not appear in the governing body's annual report, where his salary is listed as 4.27m Swiss francs.

FIFA's statutes state that the individual compensation of the president must be made public. The organisation has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the president does not receive a second salary. In a statement, FIFA said it complies with all reporting requirements on compensation, that the president's annual pay is decided by an independent compensation subcommittee, and that its accounts are independently audited in line with tax regulations in Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere.

How Infantino's re-election is shaping up despite the criticism

Despite the controversies and the public opposition of the European, Asian and North and Central American and Caribbean confederations, Infantino is on course to be re-elected unopposed in March. Montagliani has ruled out standing against him in order to focus on his own re-election as Concacaf president, while UEFA has yet to find an alternative candidate.

The European confederation tentatively sounded out high-profile figures such as Arsène Wenger and Michele Kang, the owner of clubs including London City Lionesses, but none of those contacts led to a candidacy. The deadline for candidates to declare their intention to stand is 18 November, with the election to be held at the FIFA congress in Rabat on 18 March.