Infantino is due on the line with Rubio just after 9am ET on Monday, according to a report by Goal citing the New York Post.
It is the highest-level political contact he has managed to arrange since his plan to sell a stake in FIFA’s commercial rights fell apart on Friday.
An insider briefed on the arrangement framed the pitch bluntly.
“He wanted to get online with the secretary and talk about how soccer can be a form of soft power for America. But we all know that it is about job protection. It is not about anything else at this point.”
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Trump himself has not been on the other end of the line. Infantino has tried repeatedly to speak to the president in the days since the deal imploded and has not got through, Anadolu reported on Monday.
FIFA Forward Enterprise, 48 hours to collapse
The vehicle at the centre of the crisis was FIFA Forward Enterprise, a $20bn subsidiary that would have sold minority stakes in World Cup commercial rights to private investors.
Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital was lined up to take roughly a 20 per cent slice for around $4bn, according to Goal. National federations said they had been shut out of the process and were reading the details in the press.
Inside FIFA the reaction was ferocious. Chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said he felt “deceived” by how the private-equity negotiations had been handled, and senior staff have reportedly begun coordinating under the internal label “Project Kill The Monster”.
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Infantino’s senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro, one of the architects of the 2026 World Cup bid, resigned on Friday and urged staff to speak out against the proposal.
“a comprehensive reckoning”
UEFA voted unanimously on 30 July to boycott FIFA competitions if the deal went through, a move that within 48 hours helped force Infantino to abandon the scheme. UEFA was scathing when it set out its position.
“We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals,” the confederation said, in a statement reported by AOL.
“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members.”
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CONCACAF followed with a broadside of its own, telling members that “a proposal of this magnitude does not reach that stage by accident. It is a symptom of leadership that has stopped putting football first,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The North and Central American body added that “a comprehensive reckoning with this presidency is imperative”.
Trump-aligned nations circle the wagons
The Washington move is part of a wider political operation. Infantino has been lobbying governments with close ties to the Trump administration, and Qatar, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti and Niger have all put out public backing for him to stay in the job, AOL reported.
Real Madrid became the first major club to publicly welcome the collapse of the deal, and the Football Association of Wales on Monday became the first national body to formally withdraw support, according to Anadolu.
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The math to March
Infantino’s fourth term is not decided in a September vote. Candidates must declare by 18 November, with the presidential election held in Rabat in March 2027, where 106 of FIFA’s 211 member votes are required to win.
The National’s vote breakdown puts UEFA’s 55, AFC’s 46 and CONCACAF’s 35 in the opposition column, with Oceania’s 11 uncommitted. That leaves the incumbent looking at roughly 64 reliable votes, from CAF and Conmebol, well short of the number he needs.
Whether Rubio picks up on Monday, and whether Trump ever does, is now the most closely watched call in world football.
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