FIFA president Gianni Infantino is seeking help from President Donald Trump's administration to stay in his position, in what the New York Post described as the most difficult spell since he took charge of world football's governing body.
A source told the outlet Infantino wanted to speak online with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss how football could serve as a form of soft power for America. The source said everyone knew the real point was protecting his own position, adding that nothing else was at stake at this point.
A second source said the 56-year-old Swiss-Italian felt "isolated" amid a wave of negative media coverage and was looking for notable allies to publicly support him. The New York Post asked FIFA and the US State Department to comment on the report.
Failed calls to Trump
Sources said Infantino had repeatedly tried, without success, to reach the 80-year-old Trump by phone since a plan to sell football's assets to private investors collapsed on Friday, 31 July, after facing an outcry from almost all football federations worldwide.
The plan also triggered an open revolt against Infantino's leadership inside the Zurich-based organization. A FIFA official told the New York Post that officials wanted to remove Infantino from the presidency, in a movement nicknamed "Project Kill The Monster."
FIFA chief executive Kevin Lamour told the Associated Press on Friday that he felt "deceived" by Infantino's actions, saying he had not known about the secret talks.
The scrapped $4bn deal
The abandoned plan would have created a new subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise to manage the venture. Thrive Capital, a private equity firm run by Josh Kushner, the younger brother of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, would have acquired a 20% stake in the business for just over $4 billion.
The plan, first reported by the Times of London, angered football leaders around the world, who said they learned about it through media coverage rather than from FIFA itself.
UEFA's World Cup boycott vote
UEFA, European football's governing body, voted unanimously on 30 July to boycott all competitions organized by FIFA, including the next men's World Cup, which Spain, Portugal and Morocco are set to co-host in 2030.
The vote raised the unprecedented prospect of two host countries boycotting "their own" World Cup, which would deprive the tournament of stars such as Real Madrid's French forward Kylian Mbappe and Barcelona's Spanish teenage sensation Lamine Yamal.
