Infantino's Letter to 211 Federations: A Validity Check Before the March Congress

On 21 September 2026, 211 FIFA member associations received the same letter. It was signed by Gianni Infantino. The letter proposed an independent review of FIFA's decision-making process, consultations with confederations and member associations, and a commitment that a member's stance on governance proposals would not affect how FIFA treats it.

I read that letter in Berlin, at the desk where a printed copy of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) sits on the left and a match-data sheet on the right. The old job left me one reading order: clauses first, press releases second.

The next day, 22 September, German Football Association (DFB) president Bernd Neuendorf said: “I regard Gianni Infantino's letter as a transparent ploy to secure his re-election next year.” He added that FIFA now seems to recognise change is essential, but that Infantino is not the right person to lead a reform process, having squandered his credibility. Neuendorf also sits on the FIFA Council, the body's main decision-making organ.

A plan dropped, a trust withdrawn

In July 2026 FIFA abandoned a plan to sell a 20 per cent stake in a commercial rights company that included World Cup rights, after fierce opposition and boycott threats. UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and CONCACAF said they had not been consulted at any stage, and UEFA said it had lost faith in the presidency. The presidential election falls in March next year, and no credible challenger has emerged.

It is the second time in little more than a decade that a FIFA president has reopened the reform file to keep his seat. In 2026, after corruption allegations, FIFA set up an Independent Governance Committee chaired by law professor Mark Pieth. Its legacy was a thicker ethics code, two independent investigatory chambers, and a president who stayed until 2026. That historical scale of sanction says one thing: FIFA rewrites rules best, and lets rules rewrite it last.

Three clauses and one gap

Clause one, the independent review, is attractive on paper. Clause two, consultation, follows procedure. Clause three deserves close reading: the promise that a member's position will not affect how FIFA treats it, and that development and solidarity programmes continue under existing rules.

Read as a validity check, clause three handles fear, not dependency. FIFA controls three flows no member association wants cut: development money by cycle, international referee badges and training seminars, and the appointment of match officials for World Cup qualifiers. Guaranteeing that a contrary vote will not be punished does not reduce that dependency; it only makes it more comfortable to speak.

The arithmetic of the chamber does the rest. With 211 associations and one vote each, 106 votes win. UEFA has 55 members, the AFC 47, CONCACAF 41 — 143 in total, far above the threshold. Those three blocs opposed the stake sale together. They still field no candidate, because each bloc's economics, calendar and cash flows point in different directions. Unity in opposition is far cheaper than unity in nomination.

When Article 17 lands on the deliberation table, I remember the way Neymar stepped across the law without looking down at his feet. In 2026 I spent 2,500 words on Article 17 of the RSTP to show that a member association cannot defend itself when the centre does not want to be audited. The verdict here lies in architecture, not in personality. An independent review only means something when the person who picks the reviewers, the person who defines the mandate and the person who pays for it are not in the same room.

On the night I faced VAR, I learned that technology is not at fault. Whoever operates it is.

Emotion and the laws

VAR is not wrong. What is wrong is our belief that it can replace a night on which a referee makes a mistake. In Saint Petersburg, on 10 July 2026, I commentated the France–Belgium semi-final for a Berlin radio station and said that Blaise Matuidi's shoulder charge on Thibaut Courtois was a reading error, not a technical one. The expected-goals data that night gave Belgium 1.8 and France 0.7, while the score read 1-0 to France. Data measures chances; it does not measure the right to decide.

Neuendorf is right to call the letter a political move. Yet both sides are aiming at the wrong target: they argue over a name while the problem sits in the mechanism. With no rival candidate, the realistic option is not changing the man but cutting his powers: term limits, a supermajority for any sale of commercial rights, and publication of payments to member associations.

Drawing on my experience following matches across eight World Cups, mechanisms beat personalities over the long run. When an assistant referee raises a wrong flag, the stands see only him. A system is fixed only when people look at the whole officiating team, the appointments, and whoever sits in the VAR room.

And there is something the DFB finds hard to say aloud: German football went through its own governance crisis when its federation president resigned in 2026 after internal dispute. Demanding a clean VAR while your own monitor is cracked weakens the argument badly.

What remains

If nobody stands for election, reform must travel through the statutes, not through slogans. A term-limit clause needs 106 votes; it costs less than a campaign and is harder to reverse than a promise. Will 211 associations dare to amend the law before entering the voting chamber, or will they wait once more to see who pays for the flight to congress?