UEFA 'accelerating' efforts to force Infantino out of FIFA after embarrassing U-turn

UEFA have been emboldened by Gianni Infantino's humiliating U-turn on his controversial World Cup plans and are reportedly working hard to oust him from his position.

Infantino's attempts to force through plans, in which stakes of tournaments like the World Cup would be sold to private investors, has fallen flat on its face. European football's governing body UEFA, CONCACAF, which represents North and Central America, and the Asian Football Confederation spoke out against the idea, killing it dead.

Just days after announcing the plans, Infantino was forced to concede that it had "created divisions" and was "no longer in the interest" of the game. Having originally been conceived as a way of solidifying his support ahead of seeking re-election for a fourth term as FIFA president, the plans could now prove to be his downfall.

UEFA have led the backlash against Infantino and are now considering the best way to remove him as FIFA president. Sky News reports that moves are 'accelerating' and there is 'a determined effort' to oust him. The report states that it is now not a question of if, but when, Infantino will be toppled.

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The easiest outcome would be to force Infantino to resign from a position he's held for 10 years. If not, they would need 43 of FIFA's 211 associations to ask for an emergency congress in order to hold a vote of no confidence in Infantino's leadership.

Another option would be to rally support behind a rival in the upcoming election. TalkSPORT says UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has asked federations who have previously endorsed Infantino for a fourth term to revoke their letters. CONCACAF leader Victor Montagliani, or Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, could be put forward to run against Infantino.

Whatever option they pursue, it is clear that UEFA is determined to use the current momentum to force lasting change at FIFA.

UEFA said in a statement on Saturday: "We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game. We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.

"It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.

"That review should be thorough and fundamental. No option should be off the table. The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.

"When Gianni Infantino asked for the trust and the votes of FIFA’s Member Associations to elect him as their President in 2016, he said, 'Of course we have to be transparent. I have been this in the last 15 years of my life in UEFA. You will have to play a part every day in the life of FIFA,' before telling the assembled stakeholders, 'The money of FIFA is your money. It’s not the money of the FIFA President. It’s your money. You are the national associations and the money of FIFA has to serve for the development of football and not for anything else.'

"On both these promises, he has failed to deliver. The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through was anything but transparent. And with reserves standing at over $5bn, he has also failed to use associations’ money for the benefit of the game.

"UEFA will begin work immediately with partners and stakeholders all over the world and right across the game to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.

"We must start to use some of that money that is sat idle in FIFA’s bank account to deliver the kick start that the grassroots and the wider game need in each of the 211 countries of FIFA. But we don’t need to sell off the family silver to pay for it.