{"id":42387,"date":"2026-08-13T12:24:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42387"},"modified":"2026-08-13T12:24:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:24:35","slug":"qatar-morocco-among-six-arab-federations-backing-fifas-infantino","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/qatar-morocco-among-six-arab-federations-backing-fifas-infantino\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar, Morocco among six Arab federations backing FIFA&#8217;s Infantino"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Six Heads of Arab national football associations, including Qatar and 2030 World Cup co-hosts Morocco, backed International Association Football Federation (FIFA) President Gianni Infantino on \u200bThursday, with football&#8217;s world governing body in crisis following a failed \u200cprivate investment plan.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Infantino, who is seeking re-election next year, has faced open revolt after three confederations, Union of European Football Associations, Asian Football Confederation and Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football called for him to quit over his aborted bid to bring \u200bprivate investment into FIFA competitions, including the World Cup.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Swiss administrator \u200bhad proposed carving off the commercial rights to the World Cup \u2060and selling 20% to private investors to raise about $4.2 billion.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Recognising the important \u200brole of Arab football in bringing people together and strengthening cooperation among football \u200bassociations across the Arab world, we express our full support for Mr Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, and reaffirm our confidence in his leadership and continued commitment to the development \u200bof football worldwide,&#8221; the heads of the six federations said in a \u200bjoint statement.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The statement was signed by the heads of the national federations of Qatar, Lebanon, \u200cMorocco, \u2060Sudan, Egypt and Mauritania. Four of the six signatories are also FIFA Council members.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We deeply appreciate Infantino\u2019s sustained efforts to advance football globally, expand opportunities across all regions and strengthen the game\u2019s role in bringing people and \u200bcommunities together,&#8221; they said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We \u200blook forward \u2060to continuing our close cooperation with him towards a stronger and more prosperous future for world football, expanding opportunities and \u200bfurther enhancing Arab football\u2019s contribution to the global game.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Infantino\u2019s \u200bwithdrawn proposal \u2060came with a $20 million grant for member associations for the next funding cycle, an amount that could have been doubled if they signed the deal.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Despite the opposition \u2060of \u200bthe three confederations, which represent 136 of the \u200b211 member associations who will vote in the FIFA Presidential election in March, Infantino still has \u200bplenty of allies in the game.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":42388,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-42387","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"(FIFA) President Gianni Infantino","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42387","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\/42387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42389,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42387\/revisions\/42389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}