La Liga president Javier Tebas has declared that Gianni Infantino's time leading world football is finished, adding one of the most prominent club-competition voices yet to the swelling demand for the FIFA president to stand aside.
In an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Tebas repeated his call for Infantino to resign — an appeal he first made after the World Cup, before the scandal over plans to sell a stake in the sport's flagship tournament to private backers emerged. He argued that control of the game must be broadened beyond what he described as the current elite, and said Infantino's style of management had been apparent to him for some time.
"For me, Gianni Infantino's time has long since passed," Tebas told Le Monde. "Gianni Infantino is not someone who contributes to the growth of football. On the contrary, his projects are destroying the very essence of the sport: the national leagues."
Infantino, 56, has been under sustained pressure since details leaked of a plan to establish a FIFA spin-off company overseeing the organisation's competitions, including the World Cup. He had intended to run the company himself on a salary of £22m a year, with 20% to be sold to private investors including one of US President Donald Trump's in-laws. FIFA confirmed it would not proceed with the plan, and Infantino last week apologised to national associations over the manner in which it had been developed.
UEFA and CONCACAF had threatened to boycott the World Cup if the sell-off went ahead. That threat remains in place, with UEFA making clear they regard Infantino's continued leadership as untenable. The Norwegian FA has called for him to step down, and a number of European associations have withdrawn letters endorsing him for another term. The women's Under-20 World Cup, due to start in Poland on 5 September, is among the tournaments potentially affected.
The pressure intensified further over the weekend when the Daily Telegraph reported that a six-figure sum had been paid to a woman following an alleged relationship with Infantino when he worked at UEFA. UEFA acknowledged giving the former female employee a departure payment and meeting the cost of her MBA after she left the organisation. Infantino, who worked at UEFA for 16 years before being elected FIFA president in 2016, denied the allegation on Saturday. FIFA dismissed the claims as categorically untrue and published a statement accusing Infantino's critics of seeking to remove him ahead of next March's presidential election rather than waiting for that process to take its course.
Tebas was pointed about those who have only recently spoken out, saying he had observed Infantino's approach for a long time while others appeared to be noticing it only now. He also argued that the crisis reflects a systemic failure extending well beyond any single individual, calling for genuine structural reform rather than a straightforward change of personnel.
Infantino has drawn backing from outside Europe, with the associations of World Cup co-host Mexico and finalists Argentina among those publicly supporting him.
Tebas, who has been La Liga president since 2013, was unsparing in his conclusion, saying he hoped a new leader and new governance structures would emerge at FIFA rather than the old system simply continuing under different faces.
Reporting: RTÉ, The Guardian, Daily Star.