The Football Association’s chair, Debbie Hewitt, has written to Gianni Infantino demanding that Fifa release all documents relating to his abandoned World Cup sell-off plan and to the decision to lift the USA striker Folarin Balogun’s suspension during last summer’s tournament. The letter was addressed to the Fifa president and his deputy, Mattias Grafström, and was first reported by the Times.
The intervention formalises a campaign that had been building for weeks. Hewitt and other members of the Fifa council had been lobbying for an independent review of the proposed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) sell-off and of the Balogun controversy, and those requests have now been put in writing.
The timing is pointed. The letter has been sent in advance of the Fifa council meeting in Zurich on 15 October, which is due to be the first occasion since the FFE plan emerged in July that Infantino will meet the other 36 members of the group that acts as Fifa’s board of directors. The council is composed of 28 representatives of the six confederations, eight vice-presidents and Infantino himself.
Attempts to force the issue have already fallen short once. A number of council members tried last month to call an extraordinary general meeting to hold Infantino to account over FFE and Balogun, but the rebels could not muster the 19 votes required to trigger such a meeting. Hewitt’s call for the release of documents and an independent review is also likely to fail.
Infantino has had no contact with the Fifa council since writing to it to withdraw FFE at the start of last month. He has instead been lobbying for support before next year’s presidential election, making visits to the Caribbean, South America, Morocco and Qatar, and is coming under pressure as he prepares to stand for re-election in March.
The Balogun case remains a live grievance. The striker’s ban was lifted after a phone call from Donald Trump to Infantino, despite the player having been shown a straight red card for serious foul play in the USA’s World Cup last-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. That clearance allowed him to play against Belgium in the last 16, a match the USA lost 4-1. Fifa has said it followed due process, with the decision taken independently by its ethics committee, but it has yet to publish a written report on the hearing, and a request from the Royal Belgian FA for an explanation went unanswered.
Hewitt’s letter is understood to make reference to other governance issues at Fifa as well, particularly the organisation’s response to the crisis caused by the FFE controversy this summer. Fifa has not commented on the request.
The FA’s willingness to take the lead in holding Infantino to task carries some risk. The UK is the sole bidder for the 2035 Women’s World Cup, and a decision on the hosts of that tournament and of the 2031 edition is due to be made at an extraordinary Fifa congress on 23 November. The deadline for candidates to stand in March’s presidential election falls five days earlier. Infantino is the only candidate to have publicly revealed an intention to stand, with Uefa and Concacaf working to find someone to run against him.
The FA sent a letter of endorsement for Infantino’s fourth term as president before the World Cup, but it has since withdrawn its backing, along with several other European countries.