CAF president Patrice Motsepe believes Gianni Infantino’s position should be decided by FIFA’s 211 member associations at next year’s presidential election, despite growing opposition to the FIFA president. Former FIFA Council member Isha Johansen has now become the most prominent African football leader to demand that Infantino consider leaving office.
Infantino is seeking another term but has encountered an unusually public backlash. UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF have criticised his conduct and called for his resignation after his plan to attract private capital into FIFA competitions, including the World Cup, fell apart. The controversy surrounds the withdrawn FIFA Forward Enterprise scheme, which envisaged a commercial arm with an estimated value of about $20 billion. As much as 20 per cent could have been offered to external investors, while member associations were told they might receive up to $40 million during the 2027-30 cycle.
Motsepe said the election process should proceed before FIFA’s 77th Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on 18 March. He argued that any challengers should declare their candidacies and allow the full membership to make the final decision. The CAF president also accepted that football leaders must answer questions about their conduct, saying a president who fails to follow proper governance should be examined and held to account through the appropriate procedures. However, he confirmed that CAF continues to support Infantino, whom he described as a loyal ally of African football with the continent’s backing.
Johansen, who previously led the Sierra Leone Football Association, takes a very different view. She said Infantino’s handling of Forward Enterprise had damaged confidence in him so severely that the relationship could be impossible to restore. Her criticism breaks with the position of CAF’s executive committee, which unanimously endorsed Infantino’s re-election, and with Motsepe’s public defence of the FIFA chief. Former Liberia Football Association president Musa Bility has also opposed CAF’s stance, asking the confederation to review its endorsement and cautioning that Africa should not act as a protective barrier shielding one individual from accountability.
Johansen headed Sierra Leone’s federation from 2013 until 2021 and withdrew from her attempt to win another term on the FIFA Council that year. She recalled that Infantino had advised her to resign after visiting Sierra Leone alongside Motsepe during a turbulent period in her presidency. In her account, he told her to step aside because remaining in the role offered no beneficial outcome and that leaving would serve football’s interests. She followed that advice, an episode she also describes in her book, The Uncommon Enemy. Looking back, she said she would now give Infantino the same counsel: he should leave for the good of the sport.
She also questioned Motsepe’s rapid endorsement of Infantino, arguing that it was premature and did not necessarily represent the broader African view. Johansen pointed to the dilemma facing a national association offered up to $40 million, asking how its president could return home and explain to a head of state that the money had been rejected. In her view, that financial pressure must not prevent associations from examining the proposal’s moral and governance implications, including whether the method of raising the funds was ethically acceptable.
Infantino now faces his most substantial threat since becoming FIFA president in 2016. Johansen nevertheless believes a serious challenger is unlikely to emerge from Africa, while insisting that the election will not now be uncontested.
