Donald Trump has taken a side in the deepest FIFA leadership crisis in a decade, warning football’s governing body against removing Gianni Infantino.

“FIFA would be making a terrible mistake if, for any reason, they even considered replacing President Gianni Infantino,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday, calling the Italian-Swiss lawyer “fantastic”.

“He is fantastic, having just presided over the most successful World Cup, by four times, ever presented. If he is gone, it will never be as successful or profitable again!”

An open letter timed for maximum pressure

Trump’s post landed on the same day the presidents of UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation went public with a joint letter attacking Infantino’s leadership. Co-signed by UEFA’s Aleksander Čeferin, the AFC’s Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa and CONCACAF’s Victor Montagliani, alongside three general secretaries, the letter accused Infantino of a “fundamental breach of trust”.

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“Football is the world’s greatest shared passion. It belongs to no individual,” the signatories wrote, describing Infantino’s recent conduct as “not the conduct of a custodian of the game, but of one who believes the game is answerable to him.”

The trigger was FIFA Forward Enterprise, a proposal to sell minority stakes in a new commercial vehicle at a projected $20 billion valuation, aiming to raise around $4.2 billion from external investors. Among the potential backers was Thrive Eternal, the permanent-capital vehicle launched by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared. Infantino abandoned the plan on 1 August after concluding it had created divisions incompatible with its stated aims.

CAF and CONMEBOL keep him standing

The fight has split world football along continental lines. UEFA, CONCACAF and the AFC have moved against Infantino, while the Confederation of African Football voted unanimously to back him and CONMEBOL has publicly opposed any attempt to oust him that does not involve a full vote of FIFA’s 211 member associations.

On 7 August, Mexico’s football federation broke ranks with CONCACAF to declare for Infantino, while Argentina’s AFA went beyond CONMEBOL’s neutral position with its own outright endorsement. The Mexican Football Federation said it “will neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside of that institutional framework.”

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Confederations do not control how their members vote, however. Each of FIFA’s 211 associations casts its own ballot when Infantino stands for a fourth term at the FIFA Congress in Morocco in March 2027.

Figo: Infantino ‘debased’ the presidency

Pressure on Infantino has not come only from the confederation letter. Portugal and Real Madrid great Luis Figo called for him to resign, saying he had “debased” the FIFA presidency. Norwegian Football Federation president Lise Klaveness said her body would “ask the FIFA president to resign now”, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he no longer had confidence in the FIFA chief.

FIFA has swung back on its president’s behalf. In a statement on 9 August, the governing body accused critics of a “concerted and ongoing effort” to undermine Infantino, built on “unsubstantiated assertions and demonstrably false claims”, and pointed out that he was “democratically elected by FIFA’s member associations”.

Trump’s intervention turns a governance row into a geopolitical one. His son-in-law’s family has been linked to the abandoned investment vehicle, and the World Cup he praised was co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. In March, the 211 federations decide whether the endorsement of a US president counts for more than the anger of three confederations.

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