{"id":41677,"date":"2026-08-06T08:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T06:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41677"},"modified":"2026-08-06T08:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T06:35:16","slug":"infantino-fifa-present-united-front-after-crisis-meeting-over-stake-sale-fallout","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/infantino-fifa-present-united-front-after-crisis-meeting-over-stake-sale-fallout\/","title":{"rendered":"Infantino, FIFA present united front after crisis meeting over stake sale fallout"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) apologised to its members for mistakes made over its abandoned proposal to sell commercial rights to the World Cup as the body&#8217;s leadership reaffirmed its support for President Gianni Infantino after a crisis meeting in Morocco on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The \u200bproposal to sell a 20% stake in a new commercial rights entity to private investors in a deal that would have raised about $4.2 billion provoked a fierce backlash and \u200cwas withdrawn last Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Infantino bore the brunt of the criticism, including some from inside FIFA, which raised questions over his re-election as president next March.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8220;Following a meeting in Rabat, Morocco, the FIFA Secretary General and members of the FIFA management board in attendance reaffirmed their full support for FIFA President Gianni Infantino,&#8221; the statement said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8220;In turn, the FIFA President reiterated his full support for the FIFA Secretary General and the FIFA administration for their necessary and outstanding work in the delivery of his \u200bvision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom sent an internal memo to staff this week lamenting the &#8220;sad and reproachable series of events&#8221; that led to the project being &#8220;permanently abandoned&#8221;, two sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20527,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-41677","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"FIFA apologised to its members for mistakes made over its abandoned proposal ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41678,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41677\/revisions\/41678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}