By Aadi Nair
Aug 7 (Reuters) – Mexico and Argentina’s football associations have thrown their support behind FIFA President Gianni Infantino, as the world soccer chief faces a fierce backlash over a now-abandoned proposal to sell off some of the commercial rights to the World Cup.
The Mexican Football Federation (FMF), co-hosts of the recently concluded World Cup, has broken ranks with its own regional confederation by backing Infantino after CONCACAF called for a “comprehensive reckoning” with his presidency.
On Thursday, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) unanimously backed Infantino’s leadership, but European soccer’s governing body UEFA said it remained committed to boycotting the World Cup and other FIFA competitions.
Asia’s confederation said it “stood in solidarity” with UEFA and CONCACAF, which runs football in North and Central America as well as the Caribbean.
However, South America’s CONMEBOL issued a statement on Thursday rejecting any attempt to oust Infantino that did not involve a vote of all 211 members.
Mexico’s federation echoed those sentiments.
“The FMF will neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside of that institutional framework, and it joins the call made … by President Infantino to collectively continue developing football for the benefit of the 211 member associations,” it said in a statement.
“The FMF supports President Infantino’s leadership in continuing to promote the development of football through institutional strengthening.”
Following a meeting in Rabat this week, FIFA said it had apologised to its members for mistakes around the proposal to sell a slice of the World Cup’s commercial future.
It also pledged to review the processes that led to the controversy.
AFA ACKNOWLEDGES FIFA ERRORS
The fallout from the proposal has cast a shadow over Infantino’s bid for reelection for a fourth term at the FIFA Congress in Morocco in March, which had looked like a foregone conclusion two months ago.
No clear candidate to stand against Infantino in March’s election has yet emerged, however, and the Swiss administrator still enjoys considerable support, including on Thursday from 2022 world champions Argentina.
In a letter to Infantino, Argentina’s football association (AFA) expressed its support for FIFA’s work over the last 10 years, saying it had “centred on the development of soccer worldwide and institutional strength based on a clear, stable, and transparent governance model”.
While the AFA acknowledged that the proposal generated far more uncertainties than certainties and that errors had been made, it said that the way forward was to continue working under FIFA’s leadership ahead of next year’s Congress.
CONMEBOL’s earlier statement expressed concerns over the “repeated unilateral actions taken without resorting to dialogue,” stressing the importance of institutional reforms FIFA introduced more than a decade ago to promote transparency.
The Croatian Football Federation were among the individual national associations to withdraw support for Infantino, following similar moves from England and Albania.
“This decision followed a thorough reassessment within the federation in light of recent developments surrounding the FIFA World Cup 2026 and discussions within our governing bodies,” Croatia’s federation said.
On Thursday, players’ union FIFPRO said Infantino’s proposal was not just a governance failure but a “profound abuse of presidential power”.
FIFA has said that all actions taken over the commercial rights proposal complied with its regulations and stressed that mistakes related to process and communication rather than breaches of governance rules.
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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