France to 'betray' UEFA's boycott of FIFA? President is Infantino's 'new best friend'

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Tom Weber | Writer

Multilingual sports writer who specialises in European football and American soccer.

Philippe Diallo, the president of the French football association (FFF), is being accused of secretly still supporting the under-fire FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

The FIFA supremo has caused a schism within football after plans leaked that he was planning to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private equity in what was called the "FIFA Forward Enterprise."

With Infantino already facing the music after a hypercommercialised and hugely controversial World Cup, this was the straw that broke the camel's back for many. UEFA, European football's governing body, openly called on the 56-year-old to resign.

However, there were layers to the outrage: while some, like UEFA, were genuinely upset about the idea (or at least pretended to be), others were only disillusioned that they were not consulted.

Infantino retains the backing of some confederations, most notably CAF (Africa). Because of the lack of universal condemnation, the president is refusing to resign and is planning to run for re-election next year. He is confident that there is enough support to remain in power.

Could France "betray" UEFA?

UEFA is planning to boycott all FIFA competitions, meaning that it could refuse to participate in the October qualifiers for the 2027 Women's World Cup and the competition proper should the situation remain unresolved.

It has also been suggested that UEFA, the AFC (Asia) and CONCACAF (North and Central America), who jointly published an open letter condemning Infantino's actions recently, could launch their own breakaway competitions.

Despite the governing bodies' unified public facade, some individual member states have already broken ranks. In the AFC, Qatar have thrown their weight behind Infantino, while CONCACAF powerhouse Mexico recently made waves by doing the same.

And according to investigative journalist Romaine Molina, former world champions France could "betray" UEFA and its planned boycott of FIFA competitions. He claims that the silence from FFF chief Philippe Diallo is telling.

The president has not made a public statement on the FIFA Forward Enterprise debacle, nor has he withdrawn support for Infantino. Molina points to the fact that New Caledonia, a French territory with an independent national team, recently backed Infantino as proof that France does not support UEFA's plans to oust the FIFA bigwig.

Diallo allegedly does not want a FIFA boycott and has become Infantino's "new best friend" in the process. The journalist adds that Diallo has been emboldened by French president Emmanuel Macron's call for "unity," which he interpreted to mean supporting FIFA.

Despite Macron's supposed involvement in this story, Molina emphasises that Diallo appears to mostly be acting alone. The rest of the FFF executive committee remains in the dark about his continued support of Infantino.

UEFA wants to show a united front against Infantino because its candidate will require 106 votes at next year's election if it wishes to defeat the incumbent - but it only has 55 member states. And if not all of them are on the same page, as Molina suggests, then that does not bode well.