Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday he doesn’t have confidence in FIFA President Gianni Infantino to lead world soccer’s governing body, after a now-abandoned plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
Carney told reporters at an event in Toronto that keeping the sell-off plan a secret from senior FIFA staff was a “fatal” move on Infantino’s part and “not how you run any business … let alone something that is a global responsibility like football.”
“I’ve run a few organizations in my time,” the prime minister said. “The idea that proper governance is not to disclose to your closest advisers, your chief operating officer, your fellow board members, something of consequence that you’re even considering — let alone proposing — that’s fatal, should be fatal and you lose confidence in that individual.
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“They (FIFA) have their own procedures for making those determinations, but certainly I don’t have confidence in Mr. Infantino after this point, given what transpired and given the nature of what transpired.”
Carney attended multiple matches and events with Infantino while Canada hosted this year’s recently-concluded World Cup along with the U.S. and Mexico.
His comments come after British Prime Minister Andy Burnham this week also criticized Infantino’s move and questioned his leadership.
“I do not believe that he is the right man to lead football forward on the world stage,” Burnham said Sunday. “The plan that was put forward was offensive to many people, football people, around the world, and it can’t be the case that we just move on and forget that, it wasn’t acceptable.”
On Saturday, European soccer’s governing body UEFA said it had lost confidence in FIFA’s leadership — possibly paving the way for a challenge to Infantino’s presidency. The governing body for North and Central American and Caribbean soccer (CONCACAF) said FIFA leadership had “stopped putting football first.”
Infantino was forced into a backdown over his controversial plans to sell World Cup profits through a commercial subsidiary that would run its top competitions.
Infantino’s plans fell apart after UEFA’s 55-member nations agreed last Thursday to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA competitions. CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation also said they opposed the plan.
Global News has reached out to Canada Soccer for comment.
The next FIFA presidential election is in March in Rabat, Morocco. The deadline for candidates to enter the presidential contest is Nov. 18, exactly four months ahead of the vote.
More to come…