Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has added his voice to the criticism facing FIFA and Gianni Infantino after the president\u2019s failed attempt to sell stakes in future World Cups to private investors.<\/p>\n
Masters backed the FA and UEFA, both of which have already condemned the move and called for Infantino\u2019s removal. UEFA is also still threatening a boycott of FIFA competitions unless the governing body can offer guarantees that it will never again put football up for sale.<\/p>\n
Speaking to BBC Sport on Tuesday, Masters made his position clear. \u201cI don\u2019t think FIFA should ever be contemplating selling off a stake in the World Cup. They\u2019re a not-for-profit organization,\u201d he told BBC Sport on Tuesday. \u201cThey should really be holding that competition in trust for the future of football, so I think it\u2019s a bad idea, and the FA have taken the right position with regard to Gianni [Infantino].\u201d<\/p>\n
He went further in his assessment of FIFA\u2019s role in the controversy. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem of FIFA\u2019s making,\u201d he added. \u201cThis is a self-inflicted wound. They are the people, the organization that has pressed the self-destruct button, and the consequences of that flow into the solutions that need to be found.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Masters, the clearest answer is for Infantino to leave office. The Swiss administrator has been in charge since 2016 and had been expected to run unopposed in next spring\u2019s election, but that outlook may now be shifting.<\/p>\n
No official challenger has yet declared against him, although discussion has already turned to possible contenders. Among the names mentioned are Norwegian Football Federation president Lise Klaveness and former Arsenal manager Ars\u00e8ne Wenger, now Chief of Global Football Development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richard Masters has backed the FA and UEFA as FIFA and Gianni Infantino face<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-18594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-epl","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}