FIFA President Infantino receives African support as demand made for due process

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FT Desk

African football chief Patrice Motsepe believes Gianni Infantino must only be removed as FIFA President via a democratic election.

Infantino is currently under intense scrutiny following his scrapped FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal to sell World Cup shares to private equity firms.

After the overwhelmingly negative response to the plans, they ended after just a few days. UEFA warned that they would boycott any FIFA tournaments, including the World Cup, if the proposals went ahead.

Infantino subsequently apologised in an open letter to FIFA staff and members. But he apologised for a lack of communication over the plans rather than the plans themselves and that proved a tipping point for UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC, all of whom have campaigned for his removal.

Those entities want Infantino to resign, but CAF President Motsepe doesn't believe that can happen.

"If anybody has got any problem against anybody, whether it's Gianni, whether it is anybody else, follow the process, follow the FIFA process, simple as that," Motsepe told Sky News.

"If you want to take him out, go for elections; let the 211 member associations decide. Do that and the vote will express whether they've got confidence in him or not.

"You've got to be very careful. There are elections taking place next year. Shouldn't we allow that process to continue?

"I've heard so many stories about various issues and am careful to pass judgement on anything.

"Everybody has a right to be heard. Let's have a hearing, and a proper forum, a proceeding, a court, or whatever it is, or a tribunal ... everybody is entitled to fair judgement, to fair treatment."

The CAF Executive Committee (“EXCO”) unanimously endorses the “Joint Update” by the FIFA President and Secretary General on the FIFA Forward Enterprise and will continue to focus on making African Football amongst the best in the world and adhering to governance and transparency…

— CAF Media (@CAF_Media) August 6, 2026

The CAF believe there were no regulation breaches in Infantino's World Cup plans as they had not yet been finalised.

"There's a lot that's problematic and negative that they have to fix," he continued.

"But he has apologised and said maybe there's a different way these things should have been done, but we also take advice."

The CAF is the only football federation that has thrown its support behind Infantino since the scandal involving the FIFA Forward Enterprise plans.

“We are committed ‌to continue ‌working together with FIFA, its member associations, other football Confederations and stakeholders to safeguard and adhere to governance, due process, and transparency,” ​a statement from Motsepe read two weeks ago.

This week, it was reported that Infantino was looking to press ahead with plans to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams in order to curry favour with the South American CONMEBOL federation.