Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Faroe Islands met in the Finnish capital on Sunday and issued a rare joint declaration saying they had “lost confidence” in Infantino and demanding a top-to-bottom review of how FIFA is run.
The step is unusual because it is collective. Individual associations have criticised Infantino before, but six FIFA member federations formalising their opposition in a single text, published together from one city, gives the protest a weight that separate national statements would not.
“The six Nordic football associations have lost confidence in the FIFA president and have serious concerns about the governance and high-level decision-making of the organisation,” the associations said in their joint statement.
What the Nordics are demanding
The declaration set out three concrete asks. The first is a guarantee, in writing, that FIFA will never again try to sell off pieces of its competitions.
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“We expect that FIFA provides binding assurances that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership,” the statement said.
The second is an outside investigation into how the aborted private-equity plan, known as the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, was allowed to develop in the first place. The Nordic FAs backed the same demand from UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF for “a fully third-party review of the events surrounding the FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal.”
The third is broader. The associations called for an independent review of whether FIFA’s governance framework still delivers the “independence, checks and balances, transparency and accountability” that the 2016 reform programme was supposed to guarantee.
The private-equity plan behind the split
The trigger was Infantino’s proposal to sell commercial stakes in FIFA tournaments, the World Cup included, to private investors. The plan was pulled after a backlash that pulled in UEFA, the AFC and CONCACAF, but the withdrawal has not defused the row.
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Two days before the Helsinki meeting, Denmark’s football association, the DBU, went further than any of its neighbours by saying it would work to put up a rival candidate at the next FIFA election.
“Confidence in Gianni Infantino is gone, and neither the withdrawal of the proposal nor the subsequent apology for the handling of the process changes that assessment,” the DBU said.
The DBU also set out its intended next move.
“DBU, together with UEFA and our international colleagues, will work to ensure that the member associations in the presidential election in 2027 have a real choice and a credible alternative that can unite FIFA across confederations and rebuild the trust that has been broken.”
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Infantino in the Dominican Republic
As the Helsinki statement was published, Infantino was on the other side of the Atlantic, meeting Caribbean Football Union officials at an under-14 tournament run under the FIFA Forward development programme. He did not address the Nordic declaration directly, but the messaging was pointed.
“We have transformed FIFA, made it to what it is, and I stress again today to the CFU members, we are here with one job, to grow football in every corner of the world,” Infantino told the CFU representatives.
He also acknowledged that criticism had been building.
“It’s important to engage, to have a dialogue, to express views and opinions. A lot has been happening in the last few weeks and it’s important that you listen, and you’re able to express what your feelings are.”
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What the vote in Rabat looks like
Infantino is seeking a fourth term that would keep him in the FIFA presidency through 2031. The election is scheduled for the 77th FIFA Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on 18 March 2027, with the nomination deadline set for 18 November.
Confederations do not vote in a bloc at a FIFA Congress. Each of FIFA’s national associations casts its own ballot, so the significance of the Nordic move is political rather than arithmetical: it is the first regional grouping to convert weeks of scattered criticism into a formalised, joint position, and the DBU has already committed to hunting for a challenger.
