Gianni Infantino warned to ‘seriously backtrack’ to avoid football ‘civil war’ after UEFA World Cup boycott

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has warned he may have to “seriously backtrack” after UEFA threatened to boycott the World Cup over the governing body's proposed sell-off plans.

Speaking to GB News, Football writer Chris Skudder warned that the beautiful game could be at risk of “civil war” if the issue was not resolved.

He described Europe’s response, which will see England and other European nations miss the upcoming 2030 tournament, as “unequivocal”.

Mr Skudder warned that the prospect of a World Cup without Europe's biggest footballing nations would be “pretty unpalatable”.

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“It looks as though Infantino is going to have to do some serious backtracking here,” he said.

The football writer noted that while Uefa’s 55 member associations account for only a quarter of FIFA's 211 voting nations, they represent many of world football's biggest powers, including England, Spain, Germany and France.

“The prospect of FIFA going into a World Cup without Spain and France and England and Germany and all the big-hitting nations is pretty unpalatable,” he said.

He warned football could be heading towards a “civil war”, describing the dispute as “money versus quality”.

“Gianni Infantino, as we've seen, appears to be seduced by money and power,” Mr Skudder claimed.

“If this were to go ahead and a company called FIFA Forward Enterprise would have come into being, he would stand to make an awful lot of money.”

Mr Skudder acknowledged that the proposals could give smaller nations “a place at the table”.

“There's a power struggle here that the power point in the world game is with Europe financially without any shadow of a doubt.

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However, he warned that equal voting power within Fifa’s voting structure meant the reforms could be pushed through without resistance.

“Infantino knows he could get the votes off these small countries and push Uefa out,” he said.

“He is promising these small nations a good bit of money, about $40million each. If they agree to this influx of cash now, they would outnumber the big nations by quite a considerable distance.”

“Infantino knows this when he comes to be reelected; he can seduce these small nations, lots of them, and get enough votes to be reelected.

“I'm talking nations like Tonga, like Anguilla, like American Samoa, who not too long ago were beaten 33-0 by Australia in a qualifier.

“So that shows it's completely disproportionate and unbalanced.”

Even if Mr Infantino was successful, the football writer predicted: “Uefa will then pull out and the World Cup would be dead.”

Aiming at Fifa directly, Mr Skudder said the historic tournament was “not theirs to give away and it would ruin the game”.

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