Infantino told to open the books on World Cup sell-off as FA chair turns up the heat

Gianni Infantino has spent a decade running Fifa as though the place belongs to him. This autumn, one of his own vice-presidents is asking him to show his working.

Debbie Hewitt, the Football Association chair, has written to the Fifa president demanding the release of all paperwork connected to his abandoned plan to sell a slice of the World Cup. The letter, also sent to the governing body’s secretary general, Mattias Grafstrom, asks for full disclosure before the council sits on 15 October.

There is a second request inside the same envelope, and it is the one that will sting in Zurich. Hewitt wants a written explanation for the decision to unpick Folarin Balogun’s suspension midway through the summer’s World Cup.

The Balogun ruling that nobody could explain

Balogun, the United States forward, was sent off for a foul on Tarik Muharemovic during the last-32 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina. A one-match ban should have ruled him out of the last-16 tie with Belgium. He played anyway, after Fifa announced that the suspension would be held over for twelve months, leaning on a rule that allows punishments to be set aside.

No further reasoning was offered. The FA, which had already put its name to a letter backing Infantino’s re-election, was uneasy from the start and asked for the relevant documents while the tournament was still running. Those concerns deepened when Donald Trump confirmed that he had phoned Infantino to ask for the ban to be reconsidered.

A plan that would have sold the family silver

Then came Fifa Forward Enterprise, revealed by journalists within days of the World Cup final, and the mood curdled. The scheme would have placed the commercial and ticketing rights to Fifa’s competitions, the World Cup included, inside a new company, with 21 per cent of the business handed to private investors.

Associations across the world objected and the proposal was pulled. Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation published an open letter accusing Fifa’s leadership of acting in bad faith. Uefa then went to law, preparing criminal proceedings in three United States courts and repeating its call for transparency. Fifa’s answer was to brand the litigation a smear against the institution and the man who runs it.

Hewitt is now pressing for an independent inquiry: how the idea was born, who authored it, and how the tender for that investment was conducted. Failures of governance, and a culture that has lost its way, sit behind the whole affair, she suggests.

An election in March sharpens everything

The politics make the paperwork explosive. Infantino, 56, wants a fourth term in March, and anyone planning to stand against him has until 18 November to come forward. England, Wales and Scotland have all withdrawn the support they previously offered. Africa, South America and Oceania continue to stand behind him, which is why he can still expect to win comfortably.

Since shelving the sell-off, Infantino has met Fifa’s management board in Rabat. The council, notably, has heard nothing. That changes next month.

Why it matters

A single letter from London will not remove a Fifa president. It can, however, set the terms of the argument. Hewitt is asking for documents, in public, on a deadline, about a proposal that would have mortgaged the sport’s crown jewel. If the answers do not arrive before 15 October, the suspicion will harden that there is something worth concealing. For a president who has always preferred to control the narrative, that is an unfamiliar position.

Based on reporting by BBC Sport’s coverage of the FA letter.