The revolt against Infantino has moved beyond World Cup boycott threats. UEFA is now trying to find someone who can actually beat him in Rabat.

UEFA held strategy meetings in Austria before this month’s Super Cup, joined by senior officials from other confederations. President Aleksander Ceferin has signalled he will lead a no-confidence vote against Infantino if the incumbent does not withdraw. Three names have surfaced as potential challengers: Salman, CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, and European Club Association chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who also runs Paris Saint-Germain.

Salman came within 27 votes in 2016

The reason Salman’s name keeps returning is the arithmetic.

In Zurich in February 2016, the Bahraini took the vote to a second round and lost 115 to 88, in Infantino’s only contested election to date. It was the first FIFA presidential runoff since 1974.

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Salman has led the Asian Football Confederation since 2013 and sits as a FIFA senior vice-president. He called Infantino’s collapsed plan to sell World Cup commercial rights to private investors “totally unacceptable”.

Confederations do not deliver votes

A no-confidence vote requires 43 of FIFA’s 211 members to trigger. UEFA’s 55 associations would clear that bar on paper.

But confederations do not deliver their members’ votes. Each of the 211 associations casts its own ballot, and in 2016 Infantino won 115 of the 207 that voted by pulling support from every continent, including UEFA territory.

What has shifted is at the top. The leadership of UEFA, CONCACAF and parts of the AFC have all publicly moved against Infantino since the commercial plan collapsed. All 41 CONCACAF members rejected the proposal. CAF president Patrice Motsepe has been involved in the discussions but pushed for the ballot box rather than a no-confidence vote.

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“If you want to take him out, go for elections. Let the 211 member associations decide,” Motsepe said.

Ceferin’s naming problem

Montagliani, CONCACAF president since 2016, is the name BBC Sport and ESPN have flagged as the front-runner if he stands. The Canadian co-orchestrated the North American bid for the 2026 World Cup that FIFA has just delivered. He has made no public commitment to running.

Al-Khelaifi’s name keeps appearing on shortlists, but people close to him have told reporters he “genuinely, genuinely, genuinely doesn’t want the job.”

That leaves Salman as the only prospective challenger with a track record of actually running against Infantino, and the only one whose confederation base sits outside the UEFA and CONCACAF leadership Ceferin is working with.

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Nomination papers due 18 November

Candidates must file by 18 November 2026, with backing from at least five member associations, to appear on the ballot at the FIFA Congress in Rabat on 18 March 2027.

FIFA is not blinking. In a statement to reporters last month, a senior source at the governing body defended the president, saying his “efforts are appreciated by the overwhelming majority of world football.”

Whether Ceferin can now persuade Salman, Montagliani or anyone else to sign the papers before November is what decides how much the 2016 arithmetic matters at all.

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