Scottish FA and a Human Rights Group Pile On Infantino as FIFA Fracture Widens

UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation, and CONCACAF jointly accused FIFA leadership of "deception" in a letter last week, and the revolt against Gianni Infantino has since picked up two new fronts: a national federation defection and a formal eligibility challenge.

On August 17, Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell announced Scotland will not vote for Infantino in the March 2027 election. Maxwell said the federation is aligning with UEFA's 55 members, who have said they've lost confidence in FIFA's leadership. "55 nations are stronger than one voice," Maxwell said, according to Anadolu Agency. He also shot down any suggestion that Scotland was slow to speak up because its federation president, Mike Mulraney, chairs FIFA's Finance Committee.

Scotland joins Wales, Finland, Sweden and Serbia, all of whom pulled their support in recent weeks, according to World Soccer Talk. England's FA has signaled the same. Sweden's federation didn't mince words: "The decision is based on recurring shortcomings in governance, transparency and management, which means that trust in Gianni Infantino's leadership no longer exists."

The eligibility fight

The same day Scotland made its announcement, a human rights group called FairSquare filed a formal complaint with FIFA's Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee arguing Infantino is legally barred from running at all.

FIFA presidents are capped at three terms. FairSquare's argument, reported by The Independent, is that Infantino has already hit that limit. He took over in 2016 after Sepp Blatter resigned, then won full terms in 2019 and 2023. FIFA ruled in 2022 that his initial 2016 stint didn't count toward the cap because it was just "completing" Blatter's interrupted term.

FairSquare director Nicholas McGeehan called that a rule dodge. "The rules state clearly that three presidential terms is the maximum allowed, FIFA can't simply circumvent this rule — which serves as a check on presidential power — by saying that his first term doesn't count," McGeehan told Reuters.

McGeehan also flagged the timing of FIFA's 2022 ruling, which came two days before the Qatar World Cup final and without published reasoning. Miguel Maduro, former head of FIFA's own independent Governance and Review Committee, backed the complaint: "Trying to carve out an exception to such a rule for Mr Infantino reveals both a resistance to the principle of term limits and how some at FIFA conceive of rules not as rules but as obstacles to be circumvented."

That allegation comes from someone who used to run FIFA's governance watchdog. But it remains an allegation in a letter, not a ruling. FIFA's Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee hasn't issued a decision on the eligibility question, and no legal body has found Infantino ineligible. FIFA has not publicly responded to FairSquare's complaint as of this writing.

Why this all started

The root of the fight is Infantino's now-abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise plan, which would have sold up to a 20% stake in a new commercial entity to private investors for as much as $4.2 billion, based on a $20 billion valuation, according to Anadolu Agency. FIFA said the money would flow to its 211 member associations, especially in smaller footballing nations.

UEFA threatened a boycott. Infantino pulled the plan in early August, saying it had "created divisions that are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place." That didn't end anything. UEFA, the AFC and CONCACAF issued a joint letter calling the episode a "profound failure of judgement" and demanding an independent review, not one run by FIFA itself.

The other side of the room

Not everyone wants Infantino gone, and the divide breaks down roughly along geographic and economic lines. Patrice Motsepe, president of the Confederation of African Football, told Sky News the whole question should just go to a vote at FIFA's Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on March 18. "Let the 211 member associations decide," Motsepe said. "The vote will express whether they have confidence in him or not."

Motsepe confirmed CAF still backs Infantino: "He's been loyal to African football. He enjoys the support of Africa." Forbes contributor Simon Chadwick frames this as more than personal loyalty. Chadwick argues Infantino's coalition in the Global South sees the European-led pushback as a rich-nations power grab dressed up as a governance complaint, since Infantino's development funding pitch was aimed largely at Africa and smaller federations.

If the FFE money was genuinely earmarked for federations that get a fraction of what European leagues generate, opposition from wealthy confederations can look self-interested even if their governance complaints are legitimate on the merits. Both things can be true: the process was botched, and some of the loudest critics have their own financial stake in blocking new commercial structures they don't control.

What happens next

Three confederations have publicly turned on Infantino. Five national federations have pulled their votes. A former FIFA governance chief is calling the term-limit workaround a rule dodge. None of it, on its own, stops Infantino from running.

FIFA's math still favors him. Turkiye Today notes that opposition from three confederations doesn't automatically translate into blocking votes, since all 211 member associations get one vote each regardless of size or wealth. The eligibility complaint sits with FIFA's own compliance committee, the same body that already ruled in Infantino's favor once, in 2022. Unless that committee reverses itself or an outside body intervenes, Infantino's name goes on the ballot in Rabat on March 18, and the outcome comes down to whether Africa, Asia and the smaller federations that still back him outnumber the confederations now demanding he go.