Six Arab federations back Infantino as FIFA's crisis turns into an election count
Three confederations covering 136 of FIFA's 211 voting associations want him gone — but confederations do not cast the ballots.
The heads of six Arab football associations — Qatar, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt and Mauritania — have publicly backed Gianni Infantino to stay on as FIFA president, in a joint statement expressing "full support" and "confidence in his leadership". Four of the six signatories sit on the FIFA Council. It is the second regional bloc to line up behind him since his plan to sell off part of the World Cup's commercial rights collapsed this month.
The crisis has become an election count
What gives the statement its weight is the arithmetic behind it. Three confederations — UEFA in Europe, the AFC in Asia and CONCACAF in North and Central America and the Caribbean — have called on Infantino to resign. Between them they cover 136 of the 211 member associations entitled to vote in FIFA's presidential election in March.
That looks decisive. It is not. A confederation's public position is not a ballot: each of the 211 associations casts its own vote, and nothing binds a national federation to the line its continental body has taken. That gap is exactly what Infantino is working. Rather than trying to win back UEFA, the AFC or CONCACAF as institutions, he is collecting federations one at a time — and two of this week's six signatories, Qatar and Lebanon, belong to the AFC, one of the three confederations that asked him to go.
What was actually on the table
The proposal Infantino withdrew would have carved the World Cup's commercial rights into a separate company and sold 20 per cent of it to private investors, raising around $4.2bn. It also carried a $20m grant to member associations for the next funding cycle, an amount that would have doubled had the deal been signed. That detail matters to the vote: the associations being asked to choose a president in March are the same ones who were told what backing the plan would have been worth to them.
Why this reaches beyond the boardroom
FIFA is not only a governing body. It owns and operates the largest event in world sport, and it now heads into a contested election in the middle of delivering the next cycle of it. The 2026 World Cup finished in July, the Women's World Cup follows in 2027, and the 2030 men's tournament — co-hosted by Morocco, whose federation signed this week's statement — is already in planning. Host agreements, sponsorship renewals and broadcast deals struck between now and March will be negotiated by an administration whose mandate is openly disputed, and by counterparties who know it.
