Top News

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has formally pulled its support for FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s re-election, pointing to his controversial attempt to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.

The development comes even though Infantino withdrew the heavily criticised proposal last Friday, after it was turned down by three confederations, leaving his 10-year spell at the top of world football facing serious scrutiny.

Andy Burnham said on Friday that Infantino is the "wrong man" to lead FIFA, while the Football Association (FA) called for a "full and robust review" of his leadership.

The FAW had earlier signalled that it would support Infantino’s re-election next year, before details emerged of his plan to establish FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE). However, a statement issued on Monday confirmed that Wales has now become the first country to officially withdraw its support for Infantino.

The FAW statement said: "The recent failures in good governance, processes, leadership, values, stakeholder management, communications and sound judgement have led us to a position where Mr Infantino has lost the confidence of the FAW to remain at the helm of world football. Failing to put the best interests of football first is a failure we cannot accept."

Wales has withdrawn its support for Infantino.

The English FA is also understood to have informed FIFA that it has withdrawn support for Infantino. On Saturday, the governing body released a statement confirming its "full support" for UEFA’s view that confidence in Infantino had been lost because of the FFE proposal.

UEFA’s statement on Saturday indicated that "no option should be off the table", signalling the possibility that national associations could trigger a vote of no confidence, which in turn could result in an Extraordinary FIFA Congress. Such a step would need only 43 associations, although it is seen as unlikely unless there is strong confidence of securing a majority among FIFA’s 211 members to remove Infantino.

Concacaf, which represents associations from North America, Central America and the Caribbean, also called over the weekend for a "full review" of Infantino’s leadership. Sources have told the Press Association that Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, who is currently a FIFA vice-president, would be willing to run for the top job in world football.

On the other hand, a number of African and Asian associations, including those from Morocco, Egypt and Qatar, released statements over the weekend backing Infantino.

At the same time, UEFA has formally written to Infantino, confirming that it is "actively considering" legal action over the FFE plan.

The letter instructs Infantino and FIFA to "take immediate steps to identify, locate, and preserve all documents and electronically stored information described in this notice that are in your or FIFA’s possession, custody, or control."