Infantino Apologises to FIFA Council – But Told He Is Still Not Fit to Lead

President Gianni Infantino has apologised to the FIFA Council for his World Cup sell-off plan – but has been told he is not fit to lead unless he releases all the documents and answers key questions.
The FIFA Council met in Zurich on Thursday for the first time since Infantino’s secret FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal emerged.
Under FFE, which Infantino scrapped within days, a portion of the commercial rights of football’s world governing body would have been given to a private investment firm.
In a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, Infantino also faced questions about US striker Folarin Balogun’s suspended red-card ban, the FIFA Peace Prize and funding for national associations.
Hours later, FIFA released a video statement from Infantino. He had declined to speak to or take questions from the media.
In the FIFA video, he said: “First of all, I apologised for the mistakes that we made in relation to the communication and consultation process related to the FIFA Forward Enterprise project, which led to many consequences.
“But what is important to remember is that it was a proposal and in no way a done deal, that actually intended to enable FIFA to invest more in our member associations, as opposed to replacing support from existing resources.”
Infantino said he would answer questions in writing “in due course” following what he said had been a “constructive discussion” with “different opinions and points of view”.
Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt – a FIFA Vice President – said afterwards that many questions remained unanswered despite the “most robust, most frank, most open Council meeting” she had experienced.
“One of the disappointing things is that we didn’t get answers to anything that we had specifically requested – for example, getting the papers from FFE,” Hewitt said.
“I asked the question ‘why not?’ – and we were asked to submit those questions in writing.
“I think the man has to answer those questions and if he doesn’t answer those questions now, he’s not fit to be FIFA president – and that was what was shared in the meeting.”
Hewitt added: “I’ve repeatedly asked for the papers to be shared. I haven’t received them, and still, in spite of the request today, I haven’t received them.
“It is the rationale for why FFE happened in the way that it did, the Balogun case, the Peace Prize.
“The responses to those questions, which I still don’t have answers to, will determine from my personal point of view whether or not Gianni is the right candidate.
“That will be the point at which or not we can say that any individual that was involved in FFE can or cannot be trusted because until we see what actually happened it’s very difficult to say behaviour needs or not to change.”
Hewitt acknowledged there had been “some contrition” in Infantino’s apology.
“Then there were no holds barred in terms of what we felt about what had happened,” she added.