The battle to keep Infantino in place has left the boardroom and entered the language of the courtroom.

In a statement issued on Saturday, FIFA said it would challenge inaccurate reporting “directly and vigorously”, called the allegations against Infantino “categorically untrue” and framed them as part of an organised campaign against a sitting president.

“It is increasingly evident that there is a concerted and ongoing effort by some to undermine FIFA and its President,” the governing body said, without naming anyone.

The trigger was a Daily Telegraph investigation. The paper reported that UEFA had paid a six-figure sum to a former female employee who allegedly had a relationship with Infantino during his years as its general secretary. UEFA has since confirmed that a “departure payment” was made to the woman. FIFA acknowledged the payment too, but described it as severance and said its rules had since been “tightened”.

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From private equity to defamation

Until last week, the Infantino crisis was about money and control. On 30 July, UEFA’s member federations voted unanimously at an emergency meeting to boycott all FIFA tournaments, including the World Cup, if the president pressed ahead with plans to sell outside investors a stake in a new commercial vehicle behind the sport’s biggest events. Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation rejected the plan separately.

Infantino later withdrew the proposal. That was not enough.

In a statement earlier this month, UEFA said the boycott position holds because its members also demanded guarantees that “such attempts to disfigure the game in this way will never be made again”. UEFA added that it had “lost confidence in Gianni Infantino’s presidency”.

Saturday’s statement was FIFA’s sharpest counter yet. Alongside the “defamatory” label, the organisation warned that it would not “facilitate or tolerate any process concerning the election of the FIFA President that is inconsistent with FIFA’s Statutes”, and told opponents they should not seek “through allegation, insinuation or misinformation what they cannot achieve through FIFA’s established democratic processes”.

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March 2027 in the frame

Infantino is scheduled to stand for a fourth term at the FIFA Congress in Rabat in March 2027. The language about “democratic processes” reads as a direct message to the confederations pushing for a leadership review before that date.

Support along confederation lines is split. The African and South American bodies have publicly backed Infantino; UEFA and Concacaf have not. Confederations do not, however, deliver their members’ votes. Each national association casts its own ballot, and the FIFA presidency is decided one association at a time.

The unresolved question is who FIFA means by “some”. The organisation has left the accusation of a smear campaign unattributed while raising, in the words it chose, the possibility of formal action if the reporting continues. Nothing has been filed. The next test of UEFA’s boycott is Poland’s hosting of the FIFA Women’s Under-20 World Cup on 5 September.

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