'I don't have confidence' in FIFA president Gianni Infantino, Carney says

Only weeks after the 2026 FIFA World Cup came to a close, Prime Minister Mark Carney criticized Gianni Infantino's leadership as FIFA president.

"[FIFA] have their own procedures for making those determinations but certainly I don't have confidence in Mr. Infantino after this point, given what transpired and given the nature of what transpired," Carney said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Carney panned the association's most recent controversy: Infantino's plan to sell off part of FIFA's commercial interests to private investors.

Under the proposal, Infantino suggested the formation of a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) that would run competitions like the World Cup. FIFA's plan was to raise up to $4.2 billion US by selling around a 20 per cent stake in FFE, valuing it at $20 billion US.

'This is not how you run any business,' Carney says of FIFA president

Infantino's plan received pushback almost immediately, including from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). It released a statement saying all of its members would boycott FIFA competitions so long as the proposal remained on the table. 

The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), of which Canada is a member, also rejected the plan.

Carlos Cordeiro, who represented FIFA on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned his senior post over Infantino's private equity plan. 

"Carlos Cordeiro is someone I've known for more than three decades," Carney said. "Very high integrity individual and he was [Infantino's] adviser and had expertise in all the aspects of what was proposed and he was not consulted."

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