UEFA to boycott FIFA tournaments Q&A: Why they are doing, can it stop Gianni Infantino and where do other confederations stand?

UEFA announced on Thursday that it will boycott FIFA tournaments until plans from president Gianni Infantino to sell off stakes in the World Cup are ended.

It came after an emergency meeting of the confederation's 55 members, and could have seismic implications for world football and Infantino's plans.

In a statement released in the early hours of Friday morning, FIFA insisted "nobody is selling football" and "this is not something FIFA would ever entertain".

Here, Sky Sports News' chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol answers the immediate questions - and what the future could hold...

• UEFA to boycott FIFA tournaments if World Cup sell-off goes ahead

What happened at the UEFA meeting?

The emergency virtual meeting of UEFA's members lasted two hours. Everyone at the meeting spoke out against Infantino's sell-off plan, including FA chair and FIFA vice president Debbie Hewitt and FA chief executive Mark Bullingham.

All 55 associations voted for the UEFA action, which would include those from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

A number of them have released individual statements affirming the action, including the English FA, who said: "We stand shoulder to shoulder with our European colleagues and fully support the collective view. We oppose FIFA's plans. The FIFA World Cup belongs to football and always will."

In a further blow to Infantino, Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) also rejected the idea of the proposals. They too convened a meeting of their 41 member associations, with a statement expressing 'deep concerns' surrounding 'the absence of any review or approval by the relevant FIFA governance bodies'.

It went on to include a series of action points in relation to Infantino's plans - but did not mention any plans of a boycott, as UEFA decided to. It is the first time a confederation has done so for a FIFA tournament.

Why is UEFA doing this?

This is UEFA saying to Infantino: 'Enough is enough. We're not going to let you do this. And if you go ahead and do this, even if you think you have the votes to proceed with these controversial proposals, we will not play in any of your future tournaments'.

The next big tournament is the Women's World Cup next summer in Brazil, so as things stand, no European countries would play in that tournament.

The next World Cup 2030 is Spain, Portugal and Morocco - European countries would not play in that tournament.

This is UEFA showing that they are united and totally and utterly oppose Infantino's proposal to sell off a stake in the World Cup.

If this develops into a serious split between UEFA and FIFA - which I don't think it will - you could also have the potential on the horizon where UEFA think 'we already do a great job of running the Champions League, we do a great job of running the Euros, why don't we set up our own version of the World Cup, and we can invite Argentina, Brazil, the best sides in Africa, the best sides in Asia, to play in that as well'.

Could this put a stop to Infantino's plans?

It would mean the end of the proposals because if I'm an investor looking at buying a 20 per cent stake in FIFA's tournaments, why would I invest in tournaments that don't have European countries?

Look at the World Cup that we've just had. Six of the eight quarter-finalists were from Europe. Three of the semi-finalists were from Europe. The winners were from Europe.

Why would anybody invest in Infantino's madcap scheme when it wouldn't have teams like Spain, France, England, Italy or Germany? The proposal is dead in the water.

We don't know what Infantino is going to do next, because he's sitting in his ivory tower in Zurich being interviewed by people he employs, trying to sell this project.

But if I was an investor reading this news about how UEFA have responded, I would be thinking 'maybe I need to invest in something else, because Gianni hasn't been able to deliver what he promised he was going to deliver'.

What happens next?

First things first - Infantino will have some serious explaining to do.

Prospective investors and bankers will be calling him to find out why he has not been able to deliver Europe. FIFA Council members, heads of confederations and federations will be asking why he plotted to sell off a stake in the World Cup behind their backs.

In terms of the boycott, the first test for UEFA and the FA senior teams will come in October, during the Women's World Cup qualifier play-offs.

England face Greece during the October international break, and there will be 15 other matches taking place. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland are also scheduled to take part in the first round of the play-offs.

The two-legged ties will take place on October 9 and 13, with the winners from each match going into round two, which take place in November and December.

England Women head coach Sarina Wiegman and her coaching staff are continuing preparations for their two-legged tie against Greece as normal, Sky Sports News understands.

It is currently the same for the Women's U20 World Cup; however, the timing could not be much worse for European nations.

The tournament is due to start on September 5 in Poland and concludes on September 27. Poland, England, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain are the European nations taking part.

Where do the other confederations stand?

There are six confederations in world football. What we know is that UEFA are absolutely not in favour of this, and will do whatever it takes to stop it.

We know CONCACAF, who run football in North and Central America, seem to be against it as well. They released a statement on Wednesday saying 'we're deeply concerned, we're disappointed that this was all done in secret'. This was followed up with more condemnation after Thursday's meeting.

We've had the Asian Football Confederation - who are normally rock solidly behind Infantino - come out and say 'we're deeply concerned as well. Why weren't we consulted?'

So Infantino is losing support from confederations, but I still think there are plenty of football associations around the world - there's 211 of them - who will say 'Infantino has quadrupled the amount of money we get from FIFA, and he's now coming along and saying in January we can have an extra $20m (£14.9m) and going forward we can have triple as much money as we're getting'.

But it doesn't matter if they sign up to it or not, because without UEFA and European countries, you cannot have a proper World Cup.

Infantino is in a hole and he needs to stop digging

The statement released on Friday morning was desperate, tone-deaf and issued in the middle of the night. It's very interesting that it doesn't mention their president by name.

The way I read this is that this is a statement from Gianni Infantino; it's not necessarily a FIFA statement. How many people inside FIFA actually agree with what he is doing?

He's in a hole and he needs to stop digging. He needs to start reading the room. He needs to start accepting the fact his power is starting to ebb away and he needs to start by apologising to football fans all around the world - and he also needs to start apologising and explain himself to the confederations and the presidents of the 211 member associations.

And he needs to stop blaming the media. What is this crazy obsession he's got? He seems to have picked it up from President Donald Trump, where he thinks it's a good idea to keep lashing out at the media. He seems to somehow think that is going to help him.

The reporting that has been done this week, which was led by The Times and the Financial Times has been completely and utterly accurate. And if it wasn't for this reporting, there wouldn't be this furore that we have now and we wouldn't know the facts we know now.

I suggest Infantino needs to change course. He needs to wake up and fully understand the mess he has created for himself and he needs to start saying sorry because I think that's the only way he's going to be able to save himself.

Is there a way out for Infantino?

Infantino has been in plenty of tight spots and he has managed to extricate from them. But I think he's in big, big trouble now. I think this is the biggest crisis he's faced - and it's all of his own making.

The best way for him to survive, he seems to think, is to pretend this is all just a democratic process, what's happening now is just a consultation, the 211 football associations can decide whether to go ahead with this plan, and if they don't, no problem at all, it's all been a storm in a teacup.

Other people, I think, would advise him to come out and say sorry, then lie low for a while, maybe ride it out and maybe he could be re-elected as FIFA president unopposed next March, but that doesn't seem to be what he's doing.

I'm not sure he can carry on down this road of blaming the media and carrying on with the consultation process. I'm not sure he understands the strength of feeling against him - not just over this, but over lots of things he's done since he's been FIFA president.

What I don't understand about Infantino is: why does he make himself such a controversial figure?

He's already the most powerful person in world football. He's the president of FIFA; they just had a great World Cup - according to them it was the greatest World Cup ever - so he should be at the height of his powers and be popular.

Instead, he's made himself even more unpopular than Sepp Blatter. There are people in the world of football who now pine for the days when Blatter was the FIFA president.

What is he [Infantino] doing? Why is he getting into bed with Donald Trump and his family, why is he trying to sell stakes in the World Cup, why not just do your day job and run world football properly, instead of being such a controversial figure, thinking that you're a president, an oligarch, a statesman, when at the end of the day, all you are is a custodian of world football.

Who could take over?

It is amazing we are asking this question as we would not have been doing so just a few days ago. A few days ago, it looked almost 100 per cent guaranteed that Infantino would be re-elected unopposed for another four-year term next March.

That's because, in his back pocket, he has 200 letters of support from the 211 FAs around the world, including the English FA, who've all said they'll support him next year to stand again.

Now, things have changed and what's really interesting is whether anyone will stand against him and who that person could be.

Will UEFA put up a candidate to stand against him? There's been talk about the president of Paris Saint-Germain, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, one of the most powerful men in world football, who is on the UEFA executive committee. Could he stand? My understanding is that he is not interested in replacing Infantino.

Other candidates are people like Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, who came second in the vote to become FIFA president 10 years ago. He's the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), who released a really strongly-worded statement a few days ago about how disappointed and concerned they were about what Infantino has been doing.

Then there's the president of CONCACAF, Victor Montagliani. We've just had the World Cup in three CONCACAF countries and, historically, CONCACAF have been close to Infantino, but they said on Thursday that they rejected the proposal as well.

Finally, someone I think would be very popular is Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA. He has a totally different vision about the way football should be run. If he was the president of FIFA, there would be no hydration breaks, no FIFA Peace Prizes, no Qatari-owned private jets for the president, no $1m (£742,000) World Cup tickets.

But I don't think Ceferin has ever expressed any desire or interest, publicly, to replace Infantino.

Perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. Infantino is under a lot of pressure and I think it would be fair to say he is fighting for his job, but we are not at the stage where people are going to come out and say they are going to stand against him.

The first thing football needs to do is kill off this plan Infantino has cooked up with his friends behind closed doors.

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