BBC map shows FIFA split over Infantino’s leadership and reforms

FIFA’s 211 member associations are split over Gianni Infantino’s leadership, with Europe hardening against his private-investment plan while Africa remains a major base of support. The split matters because those associations sit at the center of FIFA’s governance and funding system, and FIFA says it provides them financial and logistical support through multiple programmes.

FIFA says its members represent 211 countries and territories across six continents, which gives the bloc politics around Infantino real weight. UEFA’s 55 member associations voted to boycott World Cups if FIFA moved ahead with the proposal to sell stakes in its competitions to private investors, turning a commercial plan into a wider struggle over control of the sport. The warning from Europe showed how quickly resistance can gather when member associations think FIFA is shifting too far toward outside capital.

Infantino, who has been FIFA president since February 2016, was elected on a manifesto that included increasing the size of the World Cup. He has long championed a bigger calendar and more commercial growth, summed up in the phrase “more tournaments, more games, more money.” His response to criticism has sharpened the divide rather than easing it, after he told critics to “chill” and later to “meditate, pray or watch football.” As the backlash mounted, Prime Minister Andy Burnham called him “the wrong man” to lead FIFA.

Support for Infantino has remained strongest in Africa, including CAF and its 54 member associations, while FIFA leadership fully backed him at a crisis meeting. That backing has not removed the tension over the private-investment proposal or the broader argument about how FIFA should be run. A temporary truce in Morocco has done little to settle the deeper governance fight, which now runs through questions of funding, tournament expansion and who controls the direction of world football.