The plan had seemed straightforward on paper: FIFA Forward Enterprise, a new subsidiary that would let private investors buy stakes in football’s biggest prizes, including the World Cup itself. Forty million dollars per federation, dangled as an incentive. A tidy vision, delivered from the top.
It did not survive contact with the football world.
Within days, UEFA called it a shabby, back-room deal and threatened a boycott. The Asian Football Confederation balked. Concacaf balked. Even inside FIFA’s own walls, the unease was audible.
Secretary General Mattias Grafström told staff in an internal memo that the past week amounted to a sad and reproachable series of events. Outside the federation, the criticism turned personal. Jordan’s Prince Ali accused the president of blackmail.
Luis Figo, never shy with an opinion, said FIFA’s problems could fill ten thousand words but the fix needed only three: Infantino must go.
So a meeting was called. Not in Zurich, where FIFA keeps its offices, but in Rabat, at the federation’s Africa headquarters, a choice of geography that would later draw its own scrutiny, after reports surfaced (and were denied) that Morocco had been promised the World Cup final in exchange for loyalty.
The management board filed in. Four hours passed. When the doors opened, FIFA had its answer: the plan was dead, the apology was real, and the president was staying.
A letter went out to the 211 member associations, an admission that mistakes had been made, a promise they wouldn’t be repeated, a commitment to review.
The management board, in turn, put its support in writing: Infantino would remain the only president elected by all 211 associations, full stop.
But letters don’t end controversies; they just formalise the terms of an uneasy peace. Outside Rabat, federations were still quietly withdrawing support ahead of the March 2027 election.
A Canadian prime minister was on record saying he no longer had confidence in the man. The apology had closed one chapter. It hadn’t closed the book.
