Star Metro - Infantino offers apology but 'no answers' at FIFA meeting over World Cup plan

"We asked a great many critical questions, but there were no satisfactory answers from my point of view," said Bernd Neuendorf, the head of the German Football Association (DFB), who is also a member of the FIFA Council.

Neuendorf was speaking after the Council met behind closed doors at the body's Zurich headquarters, where Infantino's FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal was one of the main topics on the agenda.

Infantino has been under severe pressure since his announcement in late July that he wanted to open FIFA's premium competitions such as the World Cup to private investors.

That plan was ultimately abandoned in the face of widespread criticism, with a rebellion led by European governing body UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and CONCACAF, which runs the sport in North and Central America and the Caribbean.

"I think we had the opportunity to say what we felt, and we spoke a lot about the issues," Debbie Hewitt, the chair of the English Football Association who is also a FIFA vice-president, told reporters, before adding that Infantino had said sorry.

"I think it is fair to say Gianni apologised at the beginning for what had happened, and he said that with some contrition, and then there were no holds barred in terms of what we felt about what happened."

Hewitt and Neuendorf are among the 36 members of the FIFA Council, along with Infantino.

Infantino has headed FIFA since 2016 and is running for re-election next March, despite calls for him to stand down in the wake of the FFE plan.

For the moment, no heavyweight candidate has put themselves forward to run against him.

"We were asked to submit our questions" in relation to the plan which was not put to the FIFA Council before the July announcement, Hewitt said.

"One of the disappointing things was we didn't get answers. We didn't get answers to anything we had specifically requested, for example getting the papers from FFE, and so we asked the question why and why not."

- 'Nothing has shifted' -

Many leading European national associations have withdrawn their support for Infantino in the upcoming election because of the uproar caused by FFE and other controversies, including his relationship with US president Donald Trump.

Chief among those were Infantino's decision to create a FIFA Peace Prize and award it to Trump at last December's World Cup draw, and the decision to suspend a ban for United States striker Folarin Balogun following a red card during the World Cup after Trump intervened directly by phoning Infantino.

"I speak for myself as a Council member -- from my position nothing has shifted," Hewitt added. "I have no new information that makes me feel any differently to how I felt when I went in, other than we do have a president of FIFA who is apologetic about what has happened, and secondly a promise again that we will get the information that we have requested."

FIFA was expected to put forward a plan at the Council meeting to set up a $6.35-billion development fund for the next four years.

To finance the development fund, which would allow money to be distributed to FIFA's 211 federations as well as to the regional confederations, it would draw in part on its financial reserves after a commercially successful 2026 World Cup.

The plan would allow for the payment of $25 million to all 211 member federations.

Infantino may hope the latest plan reinforces his position ahead of the election.

The deadline for submitting candidacies is November 18.

S.Morin--SMC