Several ex-footballers, including Premier League winners Emmanuel Petit and Mikael Silvestre, have called for “change” in FIFA’s leadership following the failed plan to open the World Cup to private investors.
“Change is necessary. Power has blurred the current leadership’s ability to distinguish between its own interests and what is best for football,” Frenchmen Silvestre, Petit and Olivier Dacourt said in social media posts.
The ex-players did not directly mention FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who earlier in the day was backed by former Barcelona star Samuel Eto’o, but they criticised his leadership.
“We share exactly the same concerns as millions of supporters around the world. Like them, we have watched the sport we love drift away from its core values under FIFA’s current leadership,” the former players said.
They also did not directly refer to the behind-the-scenes negotiations conducted by Infantino to place World Cup revenues into a commercial company open to private investors — a plan that was abandoned this summer under pressure from the European, North American and Asian confederations.
Petit won the World Cup with France in 1998 and also won French and English titles with Monaco and Arsenal.
Silvestre, who sits on a FIFA anti-racism panel, was a five-time Premier League winner with Manchester United and part of the French squad that reached the 2006 World Cup final.
Under-fire Infantino remains determined to seek another term when FIFA holds its next presidential election in Rabat next March.
AFP
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