UEFA vice president seeks ‘custodian of ⁠sport’ after FIFA-Infantino furore

UEFA Vice President Laura McAllister says any future FIFA president should be a “custodian of ⁠the sport” capable of uniting world football as pressure grows on the embattled current chief, Gianni Infantino, after his aborted World Cup investment plan.

After meeting in Rabat on Wednesday, FIFA’s leadership reaffirmed support ⁠for Infantino, apologised to the world football governing body’s 211 member associations for mistakes surrounding the World Cup investment plan and promised a review of the processes that triggered a fierce backlash from national federations.

FIFA’s attempt to draw a line under the biggest crisis of Infantino’s presidency, however, is unlikely to end scrutiny of the governing body’s ‌leadership and governance before the March presidential election.

McAllister said finding a credible challenger to Infantino would be difficult because any candidate would need support from across football’s global membership, not just Europe.

“It’s not as easy as people might think. The right candidate has to also have the right level of support,” McAllister said in an interview with the broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

“There’s so much politics around this. There’s such an imperative to get a candidate who could unite the whole world of ⁠football, not just Europe in this case.”

The former Wales women’s captain ⁠called for sweeping governance reforms to modernise football’s leadership structures.

“It requires a really fundamental change in the culture of how the leadership of football operates, I believe, and that we really drive forward the modernisation of the game to make sure ⁠that football isn’t run by fiefdoms or by individuals, that it’s democratically run,” she said.

McAllister’s comments came amid mounting scrutiny of Infantino after he ⁠withdrew plans to create a commercial subsidiary and sell a stake ⁠in future World Cup revenues to outside investors.

McAllister told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday that any transition in FIFA leadership would need to be accompanied by a return to what she sees as the game’s core values ‌with football governed in the interests of the sport rather than political or commercial interests.

“The game is there for everybody, from grassroots to elite,” she said in an interview. “It doesn’t belong to any ‌one ‌of those constituents. It’s as much for girls as it is for boys. It should reach every corner of the world, in the poorest countries as well as the globally successful ones.”