Gianni Infantino's grip on Fifa's leadership continues to weaken after Sandor Csanyi, president of the Hungarian football federation, became the latest senior figure to publicly declare he no longer backs the organisation's president.
In a pointed letter dispatched to Infantino on Tuesday and first obtained by the news agency Agence France-Presse, Csanyi accused the Fifa chief of failings in "professional judgment, ethical standards and leadership." The Hungarian banker, who also sits on Fifa's 37-member governing council, said the sacking of the organisation's chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, was the moment that finally broke his trust in Infantino.
"My conviction that you are capable of continuing to lead Fifa successfully and effectively in accordance with the shared values that previously formed the basis of our cooperation has been undermined," Csanyi wrote. "The final straw was the unexpected dismissal of Kevin Lamour."
Lamour was dismissed on Monday, just weeks after publicly criticising Infantino for pursuing a since-abandoned scheme to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors. His removal appears to have galvanised opposition within Fifa's upper ranks, with Csanyi's letter also pointing to a string of contentious calls made during this year's World Cup, including Infantino's push to hand control of Fifa competitions to outside commercial parties.
Csanyi is now the fifth of Fifa's eight vice-presidents to openly turn against Infantino, joining a growing bloc of dissenters that includes some of the most powerful figures in the global game. Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, Concacaf chief Victor Montagliani, and the Asian Football Confederation's Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa have all previously signalled they no longer stand behind Infantino's leadership. The Football Association's chair, Debbie Hewitt, has likewise made her opposition clear.
That leaves Infantino with support from only three of Fifa's vice-presidents: Conmebol's Alejandro Domínguez, the Confederation of African Football's Patrick Motsepe, and Oceania's Lambert Maltock. The split lays bare a deepening rift at the top of world football's governing body, with council members increasingly frustrated at being sidelined from major decisions despite the council's formal status as Fifa's principal decision-making body.
The controversy surrounding the abandoned plan to sell World Cup shares to private investors has proven especially damaging, feeding into broader concerns among federation leaders that Infantino has been concentrating power and making unilateral moves without adequate consultation. Lamour's public criticism of that plan, and his subsequent dismissal, have crystallised those anxieties into open revolt among some of Fifa's most senior officials.
With five of eight vice-presidents now on record against him, questions are mounting over how much authority Infantino retains within an organisation he has led since 2016. The defections span multiple continents and confederations, undercutting any notion that resistance to his leadership is confined to a single regional bloc.
Whether the mounting pressure will translate into formal moves to remove Infantino remains unclear, but the coordinated nature of the criticism, and the seniority of those making it, represents one of the most serious challenges to his presidency to date. Fifa has not yet issued a public response to Csanyi's letter.
Based on reporting from The Guardian.