Aleksander Ceferin has told reporters there are “many, many” potential candidates to run against Infantino. He has yet to name one.

The UEFA president has called Europe’s member associations to the German capital on Friday to settle a strategy before the deadline for candidates to enter the FIFA presidential race. The vote itself is set for 18 March 2027 in Rabat, Morocco.

The legal track is further along than the political one. UEFA is preparing a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland over alleged financial mismanagement tied to the collapsed World Cup investment deal, and has asked US courts to authorise discovery of FIFA documents.

That deal, revealed in July and dropped within days under opposition from UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF, would have sold a 20% stake in FIFA’s commercial rights, including the World Cup, to private investors.

Read also: Asencio apologises again for his drunk-driving conviction: ‘Mourinho was completely right’

Infantino’s 90 pledges

Three FIFA vice-presidents publicly denounced Infantino in August: Ceferin, AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani. None of them is currently positioned to be on the ballot. Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi ruled himself out last week.

Infantino, by contrast, already had around 90 pledges from FIFA’s 211 member federations before any opponent had been identified, according to Associated Press research. Each association casts its own vote under FIFA’s one-member-one-vote rule, and confederations do not control how their members ballot. The FIFA president met with federation officials from Azerbaijan and Latvia in Prague on Wednesday.

UEFA general secretary Theodore Theodoridis set out the European position to AP.

“Somewhere along the way things went too far with FIFA, and we’re looking to put things back where they belong.”

Read also: Cristiano Ronaldo’s own words come back to haunt him after Portugal walkout

A reform plan modelled on Brussels

Beyond the election, UEFA and allied confederations have been working on governance reforms modelled on the European Union, including a presidency that would rotate between the six continental bodies and a stronger independent administration. The aim is to make it structurally impossible for a future FIFA president to concentrate power the way Infantino has.

Ceferin set the tone publicly before the Berlin meeting. Addressing the Portugal Football Summit on 23 September, he said that “the project that shattered the unity of world football may be abolished, but the trust it broke has not returned, and repairing it is our work now.”

He added: “Football is not for sale.”

The nomination window closes on 18 November. Infantino has not formally entered the race, but his meetings with voting federations point in that direction.

Read also: Cristiano Ronaldo’s message to Lionel Messi sends the internet into a frenzy

Read also: Harry Kane and Lamine Yamal neck-and-neck for Ballon d’Or as odds shift