European soccer’s governing body UEFA declared it has lost confidence in FIFA president Gianni Infantino, piling pressure on the beleaguered sporting chief despite the organization dropping a hugely controversial plan to sell private stakes in the World Cup and other top tournaments. In a blistering statement released Saturday morning, UEFA welcomed the decision by FIFA to withdraw its plan but laid bare its unhappiness with Infantino. “We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game,” the statement said. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.” Pressure has been mounting on Infantino to drop the scheme after UEFA - whose members the winner’s of both the men’s and women’s World Cup Spain - threatened to boycott soccer’s leading tournaments. A senior adviser to Infantino, Carlos Cordeiro, resigned on Friday, saying he opposed the plans “unequivocally.” UEFA’s statement, which stopped short of explicitly calling for the FIFA chief’s resignation, said that he had promised to be “transparent” when he asked FIFA’s Member Associations to vote for him as president in 2016, but he had failed to deliver on this. “The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through were anything but transparent,” the statement said. UEFA said that it would now work with partners and stakeholders to make sure such moves cannot be fast tracked without consultation in the future. “In the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.” FIFA and Infantino had announced plans Tuesday to set up a separate subsidiary – involving private equity investment – that would control the commercial and operational rights to one of the globe’s biggest sporting events. The proposal had since come under intense scrutiny and criticism from many around the world, with UEFA saying the “soul and governance” of the game are under threat. FIFA, though, said that the money generated will be reinvested back into the sport. After backtracking, Infantino said his goal was now to “bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game.” Infantino is up for re-election next year but there are question marks over his survival with other confederations also having condemned the financing plan.
