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Fifa president Gianni Infantino insists he has the backing of the “vast, vast majority” of world football, as he laughed off questions about whether he had considered resigning over the World Cup sell-off debacle.
In a rare interview, he struck a defiant tone to BBC Sport about his own position in the wake of the controversial Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, and said it was not always easy to bring different points of view “under one roof”.
“There is nothing bad in disagreeing,” he said. “We see it every day in so many countries in the world. It’s OK to disagree. It’s OK to have different points of view, but then we need to be able to move on.”
Two months ago, Infantino was facing mounting calls to stand down as president of the organisation he has led since 2016.
The heads of European football’s governing body Uefa, the Asian Football Confederation and Concacaf, which runs the game in North and Central America, signed a letter accusing the Fifa president of breaking trust “through deception”.
Last week Uefa demanded that Fifa release all key documents relating to FFE by 2 November, with Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis saying that the organisation had failed to address “a number of fundamental questions”.
Under FFE, which Infantino scrapped within days, a portion of the commercial rights of competitions run by football’s world governing body would have been sold to a private investment firm.
Since the delivery of the letter, Infantino has been travelling the world, appearing in Morocco, the Dominican Republic, Cape Verde, and Japan, managing to shore up support to the point where his re-election as president for a fourth term next year now looks inevitable.
He has also proposed to increase the amount of money handed out for football development across the world by $3.4bn (£2.6bn).
During the interview he reflected on having been “fully endorsed” by the Asian Football Confederation – following a U-turn by its president Sheikh Salman – and having the backing of “all African countries”.
But only last week, he apologised to the Fifa Council over the “communication and consultation” regarding FFE.
He was told by Council members in that meeting that he was not “fit to be Fifa president” if he did not give them the documents they have asked for, including the rationale for FFE.
Yet, when pressed on when he would be providing the requested papers, he did not give a clear answer, saying they had to follow a “legal process” and that they were “working on it”.
“We’ll answer of course all the questions that are asked as far as the process allows, as far as we can,” he said.
Speaking from the first Under-15 World Cup in Azerbaijan, he said he and the Fifa administration were doing “as best we can” but admitted they have done “some things which are maybe less good”.
Culled from BBC
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