{"id":624112,"date":"2026-08-06T19:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/624112\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:54:15","slug":"uefa-maintains-that-world-cup-boycott-still-stands-despite-gianni-infantinos-apology-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/624112\/","title":{"rendered":"Uefa maintains that World Cup boycott still stands despite Gianni Infantino\u2019s apology \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uefa<\/a> has doubled down on its threat to boycott Fifa<\/a>-run competitions and reiterated its loss of confidence in Gianni Infantino<\/a>\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

European football\u2019s governing body said Fifa\u2019s public backing of Infantino on Wednesday night \u201cchanges nothing\u201d and explained it had not been provided with certainty that repeats of the past nine days\u2019 crisis will not occur.<\/p>\n

Last week Uefa\u2019s 55 member associations agreed to boycott Fifa tournaments if Infantino did not withdraw his privately-funded Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) and, although the scheme was scrapped last Friday, it said the terms necessary to avert the boycott have not been met.<\/p>\n

\u201cUefa\u2019s associations were very clear about the conditions attached to their non-participation in Fifa competitions,\u201d a statement read. \u201cFirst, the proposals to sell off the major competitions had to be withdrawn and secondly, assurances have to be made that such attempts to disfigure the game in this way will never be made again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese conditions have not been met. In addition, Uefa made it abundantly clear in its statement on Saturday that it has lost confidence in Gianni Infantino\u2019s presidency. That position holds. Yesterday\u2019s announcement that some people employed by the Fifa president (and whose careers depend on his favour) agree with him changes nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It leaves the turmoil enveloping football\u2019s governance no closer to being resolved. If no accord is reached before the Under-20 Women\u2019s World Cup, which begins in Poland on September 5th, that would be the first tournament subjected to a Uefa-led boycott.<\/p>\n

Uefa remain hopeful that they can exploit divisions within Fifa\u2019s leadership despite the Infantino-led show of unity following a meeting of some of their management board in Rabat on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

There were several notable absentees, however, Ars\u00e8ne Wenger declined an invitation to travel to Morocco in his capacity as Fifa\u2019s chief of global development because of a desire to distance himself from Infantino.<\/p>\n

The former Arsenal manager had launched a scathing attack on the World Cup sell-off plans the previous day, saying it was \u201cabsolutely necessary and beyond question\u201d that they were scrapped, as well as calling for greater \u201ctransparency and integrity\u201d from his employers.<\/p>\n

In contrast to Wenger, Fifa\u2019s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour, who last week described the proposals as \u201cthe project of one person\u201d, was not invited to the summit in a development that will raise further questions over his future. In addition Jill Ellis, chief football officer, and Sarai Bareman, chief women\u2019s football officer, were not present in Rabat.<\/p>\n

While Fifa\u2019s statement explained that separate apologies had been made to the Fifa council and member associations for their exclusion from the FFE process and that it was committed to a review, those sentiments cut no ice with a large percentage of Fifa council members and that the mood remains unhappy. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uefa has doubled down on its threat to boycott Fifa-run competitions and reiterated its loss of confidence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,34476,74963,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,19413,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-624112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fifa","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-uefa","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117050321877914974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}