Gianni Infantino apologizes to FIFA Council, avoids key issues - ESPN

ZURICH — Gianni Infantino gave an apology to his toughest critics but no new details or documents on FIFA issues that most concern them at a showdown meeting of its ruling council Thursday.

There were no documents about the $4.2 billion World Cup sell-off plan he launched and dropped in July.

There were no details about the Folarin Balogun red card case at the World Cup and how U.S. President Donald Trump intervened to help the national team forward.

World football's ruling body FIFA will, however, review whether to continue awarding the peace prize that was created to give to Trump last December.

Pressed by European football officials for written evidence about his secretive private equity plan for the World Cup that provoked a global rift, Infantino asked them to submit written questions, FIFA vice president Debbie Hewitt said after the 3½-hour meeting.

«The man has to answer those questions. If he doesn't answer those questions, no, he is not fit to be the FIFA president,» said Hewitt, who leads the English Football Association.

European football's ruling body UEFA is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election in March and heard little to change that view Thursday.

«No satisfactory answers were provided,» said German leader Bernd Neuendorf, one of eight UEFA delegates in the 37-member FIFA Council that Infantino chairs. It had not met since Infantino provoked the crisis.

«We need a person of integrity, someone who can be expected to restore the reputation of the association, which has undoubtedly been lost,» Neuendorf told reporters.

Infantino did start the meeting by apologizing to his council colleagues for blindsiding them and creating a furor over his private investor plan