Today, the football confederations of Europe, Asia, and North America jointly issued an open letter continuing their opposition to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
“Dear football family, football is the world’s greatest shared passion. It does not belong to any one person or organization.
It belongs to the players, fans, clubs, member associations, and every organization entrusted with securing its future.
In this spirit, as confederations representing our members, we collectively address you today.
The growth over the past decade has been real. But this progress was never the work of a single individual. It resulted from the combined efforts of FIFA, the confederations, member associations, and thousands of people dedicating their lives to the game.
The expansion of tournaments, awarding the hosting rights for the 2030 and 2034 FIFA World Cups, and the distribution of resources among associations were collective achievements, agreed upon and implemented together.
This is not about money. The confederations have already called for responsible allocation of FIFA’s substantial existing reserves to further strengthen investment in member associations’ development.
It is not about any member association losing deserved support, despite attempts to intimidate our members into believing otherwise. Nor is it about revisiting tournament expansions, World Cup slot allocations, or any other collectively made decisions. Those decisions were made jointly and must stand.
This concerns something more fundamental: the integrity of the game and the honesty of those elected to lead it.
Leadership in football is not ownership. It is not about possessing or demanding power. It is a duty to serve the football family that entrusted it.
When trust is undermined by deception, when an individual places themselves above the collective that granted them authority, that duty is forsaken.
In a recent FIFA letter to its vice presidents and 211 member associations, mistakes in the process were acknowledged. This was framed as a communication failure, while football witnessed a failure in judgment. The proposal, rushed without meaningful consultation and pushed to a deadline before member associations could properly review its terms, was not an oversight but a deliberate approach designed to limit oversight.
The letter does not admit that the proposal itself was fundamentally flawed. There remains no recognition that attempting to sell a stake in the FIFA World Cup was a profound misjudgment—not merely a procedural error but a fundamental breach of trust toward the very institutions FIFA is meant to serve.
FIFA has also committed to presenting a full report on these events to the FIFA Council, yet again failing to acknowledge that proper governance amid such profound incompetence requires a fully independent third-party investigation—not one conducted by FIFA, its staff, or any football stakeholders. FIFA’s administration must have no role in overseeing this analysis.
As stated in previous correspondence, all relevant documents and records must be preserved in accordance with UEFA’s directive on document retention.
FIFA’s own letter confirms that only one elected representative attended the leadership meeting in Morocco. FIFA Council members or member associations were not invited. Only the management committee, composed of senior FIFA officials, was present.
This recent meeting, where only select members of FIFA’s management committee were summoned abroad—excluding the full committee—and where leadership did not travel to Zurich to address FIFA’s pressing internal issues, only heightens concerns. It exemplifies the very pattern of behavior that brought us here: conduct not of a guardian of the game, but of someone who believes the game is accountable to them.
Where accountability should exist, there is silence; where transparency should prevail, there is secrecy.
These are not the qualities football deserves in its leadership. This is why we have taken this stance—not lightly or alone, but together, out of duty to the game we serve.
Football’s strength has always been its unity. We call now for that unity to be preserved, for leadership that serves football rather than seeks to command it.
Respectfully,
SALMAN BIN IBRAHIM AL-KHALIFA (President of AFC)
VICTOR MONTALYANI (President of CONCACAF)
ALEKSANDER CEFERIN (President of UEFA)
DATUK SERI WINDSOR JOHN (General Secretary of AFC)
PHILIPPE MOJIO (General Secretary of CONCACAF)
THEODOR THEODORIDIS (General Secretary of UEFA)”
