The head of African football said Thursday that embattled FIFA president Gianni Infantino should not be forced from office, and that only an election can determine his future.
Patrice Motsepe, president of the Confederation of African Football and a FIFA vice president, made his position clear while other major football governing bodies were pressing for Infantino to step down before elections scheduled for March. "If anybody has got any problem against anybody, whether it's Gianni, whether it is anybody else, follow the process, follow the FIFA process, simple as that," Motsepe told Sky News on Thursday.
"If you want to take him out, go for elections; let the 211 member associations decide. Do that and the vote will express whether they've got confidence in him or not," he said.
Infantino has been under intense pressure following his aborted plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors. The governing bodies of European football, UEFA, along with CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation, sent a joint letter this week declaring "trust is broken through deception, when an individual places himself above the collective that entrusted him with authority." Those organizations are believed to want Infantino to resign before he can seek re-election.
UEFA has threatened to boycott the World Cup and Club World Cup in protest over the scheme. Motsepe traveled to Salzburg on Wednesday for the UEFA Super Cup to hold talks with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
CAF had already formally backed Infantino. Motsepe argued there was no rules breach because the World Cup sell-off proposals would have been submitted to FIFA members for final approval. He acknowledged problems, saying "there's a lot that's problematic and negative that they have to fix," but added that Infantino "has apologised and said maybe there's a different way these things should have been done."
On Thursday, the Football Association of Ireland became the latest FIFA member to withdraw its support for Infantino, extending a wave of defections that shows no sign of stopping before the March election.
