UEFA to boycott FIFA tournaments Q&A: Why they are doing, can it stop Gianni Infantino and where do other confederations stand? | Football News

UEFA announced on Thursday that it will boycott FIFA tournaments until plans from president Gianni Infantino to sell off stakes in the World Cup are ended.

It came after an emergency meeting of the confederation’s 55 members, and could have seismic implications for world football and Infantino’s plans.

Here, Sky Sports News’ chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol answers the immediate questions – and what the future could hold…

What happened at the UEFA meeting?

The emergency virtual meeting of UEFA’s members lasted two hours. Everyone at the meeting spoke out against Infantino’s sell-off plan, including FA chair and FIFA vice president Debbie Hewitt and FA chief executive Mark Bullingham.

All 55 associations voted for the UEFA action, which would include those from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

A number of them have released individual statements affirming the action, including the English FA, who said: “We stand shoulder to shoulder with our European colleagues and fully support the collective view. We oppose FIFA’s plans. The FIFA World Cup belongs to football and always will.”

In a further blow to Infantino, CONCACAF also rejected the idea of the proposals. They too convened a meeting of their 41 member associations, with a statement expressing ‘deep concerns’ surrounding ‘the absence of any review or approval by the relevant FIFA governance bodies’.

It went on to include a series of action points in relation to Infantino’s plans – but did not mention any plans of a boycott, as UEFA decided to. It is the first time a confederation has done so for a FIFA tournament.

Why is UEFA doing this?

This is UEFA saying to Infantino: ‘enough is enough. We’re not going to let you do this. And if you go ahead and do this, even if you think you have the votes to proceed with these controversial proposals, we will not play in any of your future tournaments’.

The next big tournament is the Women’s World Cup next summer in Brazil, so as things stand, no European countries would play in that tournament.

The next World Cup 2030 is Spain, Portugal and Morocco – European countries would not play in that tournament.

This is UEFA showing that they are united and totally and utterly oppose Infantino’s proposal to sell off a stake in the World Cup.

If this develops into a serious split between UEFA and FIFA – which I don’t think it will – you could also have the potential on the horizon where UEFA think ‘we already do a great job of running the Champions League, we do a great job of running the Euros, why don’t we set up our own version of the World Cup, and we can invite Argentina, Brazil, the best sides in Africa, the best sides in Asia, to play in that as well’.

Could this put a stop to Infantino’s plans?

It would mean the end of the proposals because if I’m an investor looking at buying a 20 per cent stake in FIFA’s tournaments, why would I invest in tournaments that don’t have European countries?

Look at the World Cup that we’ve just had. Six of the eight quarter-finalists were from Europe. Three of the semi-finalists were from Europe. The winners were from Europe.

Why would anybody invest in Infantino’s madcap scheme when it wouldn’t have teams like Spain, France, England, Italy or Germany? The proposal is dead in the water.

We don’t know what Infantino is going to do next, because he’s sitting in his ivory tower in Zurich being interviewed by people he employs, trying to sell this project.

But if I was an investor reading this news about how UEFA have responded, I would be thinking ‘maybe I need to invest in something else, because Gianni hasn’t been able to deliver what he promised he was going to deliver’.

What happens next?

First things first – Infantino will have some serious explaining to do.

Prospective investors and bankers will be calling him to find out why he has not been able to deliver Europe. FIFA Council members, heads of confederations and federations will be asking why he plotted to sell off a stake in the World Cup behind their backs.

In terms of the boycott, the first test for UEFA and the FA senior teams will come in October, during the Women’s World Cup qualifier play-offs.

England face Greece during the October international break, and there will be 15 other matches taking place. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland are also scheduled to take part in the first round of the play-offs.

The two-legged ties will take place on October 9 and 13, with the winners from each match going into round two, which take place in November and December.

Sarina Wiegman and her staff are preparing for their two-legged tie against Greece as normal, Sky Sports News understands.

It’s currently the same for the Women’s U20 World Cup; however, the timing couldn’t be much worse for European nations.

The tournament is due to start on September 5 in Poland and concludes on September 27. Poland, England, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain are the European nations taking part.

Where do the other confederations stand?

There are six confederations in world football. What we know is that UEFA are absolutely not in favour of this, and will do whatever it takes to stop it.

We know CONCACAF, who run football in North and Central America, seem to be against it as well. They released a statement on Wednesday saying ‘we’re deeply concerned, we’re disappointed that this was all done in secret’. This was followed up with more condemnation after Thursday’s meeting.

We’ve had the Asian Football Confederation – who are normally rock solidly behind Infantino – come out and say ‘we’re deeply concerned as well. Why weren’t we consulted?’

So Infantino is losing support from confederations, but I still think there are plenty of football associations around the world – there’s 211 of them – who will say ‘Infantino has quadrupled the amount of money we get from FIFA, and he’s now coming along and saying in January we can have an extra $20m (£14.9m) and going forward we can have triple as much money as we’re getting’.

But it doesn’t matter if they sign up to it or not, because without UEFA and European countries, you cannot have a proper World Cup.

‘Infantino has made himself more unpopular than Blatter’

What I don’t understand about Infantino is: why does he make himself such a controversial figure?

He’s already the most powerful person in world football. He’s the president of FIFA; they just had a great World Cup – according to them it was the greatest World Cup ever – so he should be at the height of his powers and be popular.

Instead, he’s made himself even more unpopular than Sepp Blatter. There are people in the world of football who now pine for the days when Blatter was the FIFA president.

What is he [Infantino] doing? Why is he getting into bed with Donald Trump and his family, why is he trying to sell stakes in the World Cup, why not just do your day job and run world football properly, instead of being such a controversial figure, thinking that you’re a president, an oligarch, a statesman, when at the end of the day, all you are is a custodian of world football.