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In the aftermath of the World Cup, despite the many problems that affected the tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada, Gianni Infantino spoke in a manner that suggested he believed he was untouchable. Having overseen record revenues and what he called the “most outstanding” World Cup ever, the FIFA president appeared confident enough to begin a victory lap, rebuking his critics from the safety of his FIFA stronghold, secure in the knowledge that the systems and structures keeping him in power remained firmly in place.

Just over a week later, those protections around Infantino are visibly falling apart. By overreaching and pushing ahead with proposals to sell stakes in the World Cup and FIFA competitions to private investors, Infantino has crossed a threshold from which there may be no way back. UEFA’s extraordinary move to threaten a boycott of the World Cup if Infantino had succeeded was followed by two more confederations, the Asian Football Confederation and Concacaf, turning down his plans.

At that point, the Swiss-Italian could see where events were heading. There was more than enough backing to comfortably defeat his proposals had a vote taken place, and he formally withdrew the plans in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The pressure around Gianni Infantino is building rapidly.

The Independent understands that Infantino’s plans had been under development for more than a year, but the manner in which he tried to force them through — described in a blistering UEFA statement as a “shabby, back room, opaque deal... [that was] anything but transparent,” with UEFA also declaring that it had lost confidence in the FIFA president — was deeply scandalous.

He is now facing rising pressure from inside FIFA as well. The president’s long-time adviser Carlos Cordeiro, regarded as a heavyweight figure within the organisation, resigned in protest on Friday. “Football has been central to my life, and after more than 35 years in banking, I understand both the value of this asset and the consequences of giving part of it away,” he said in a statement. “That is why this proposal should be rejected.” If even senior FIFA insiders have had enough, it is a sign that Infantino has gone too far.

All of a sudden, even Infantino’s most dependable allies could be ready to move away from him. Asia will host the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, and parts of the region have benefited significantly from Infantino’s backing since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, yet the AFC president, Bahrain’s Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, has emerged as Infantino’s strongest critic outside Europe. A scathing statement on Friday accused FIFA of “undermining” the World Cup and called for an “urgent review” of its governance.

The AFC said it stood in “solidarity” with UEFA, while Concacaf, the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, also confirmed that it had “rejected the proposals” after holding its own emergency meeting. The Independent also understands that the overwhelming majority of Concacaf’s 41 members have lost confidence in Infantino’s leadership.

That deserves admiration, because Infantino’s tactic of offering countries $40m for supporting his proposals, or risking receiving only $10m if they rejected them, was aimed mainly at smaller nations that would have benefited enormously from such a windfall — extra money that could have been used to clear debts and fund long-delayed infrastructure projects. Infantino tried to exploit those vulnerabilities, but instead he ran into organised and united opposition.

With UEFA, the AFC and Concacaf aligned, a voting bloc of around 150 member associations would have been more than enough to defeat Infantino’s proposals comfortably, even if a handful of countries from those confederations had broken ranks. For Infantino, that meant a humiliating defeat was unavoidable, and he was forced to back down.

Spain were among the UEFA nations that threatened to boycott the World Cup.

Infantino also has close ties with Donald Trump.

The issue now is whether his position has become untenable and whether this fiasco will bring his presidency to an end. For this writer, the answer is already unmistakable: Infantino must go. A president who places his own political interests and the financial rewards of private investors — including those from Donald Trump’s own family — ahead of the sport cannot be regarded as a leader. As UEFA said: “This is not merely a profound failure of leadership but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football.”

Yet Infantino is likely to borrow again from the Trump playbook: it is hard to imagine Trump resigning over anything, however serious, let alone admitting to a misjudgment on this scale. It says plenty that, in the middle of what appeared to be a full-blown crisis, Infantino was pressing ahead with plans to expand the next World Cup to 64 teams while his fiercest opponent, UEFA, was holding its emergency meeting on Thursday.

Infantino is behaving like a tyrant, and he has to be stopped. UEFA and its allies will earn credit for the strength of their resistance over recent days, but they must now act decisively and present a candidate to challenge Infantino when he seeks re-election in March next year. UEFA’s Aleksander Ceferin, who has cast himself as the anti-Infantino despite introducing anti-competitive changes to the Champions League during his own tenure, would be an obvious contender.

Aleksander Ceferin and Nasser al-Khelaifi are among the possible challengers to Infantino.

The Independent, meanwhile, has reported that Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi, who is also the chairman of Qatar Sports Investment, would attract support as well. He could benefit from a further rise in his standing within the game. Other figures, such as Lise Klaveness, the president of the Football Association of Norway, have been confronting Infantino for some time. Klaveness in particular deserves recognition for speaking out long before opinion against Infantino began to shift within football’s political circles.

Infantino’s plans to sell stakes in the World Cup may have been blocked, but bringing down his wider empire will require more than that. Even so, football has made its position clear and now faces a window of opportunity that must be taken if it wants to build a fairer game: the rejection of Infantino’s proposals should also become a rejection of the man himself, and of the organisation he has helped mould.