SOCCER: Gianni Infantino backs FIFA proposal to increase federation payments

FIFA president Gianni Infantino is willing to discuss having the governing body disburse millions of dollars to the member associations.

The amount of the distributions to individual nations will be on the agenda of the FIFA Council's Oct. 15 meeting, according to a letter Infantino sent to the heads of the six confederations, The Athletic and ESPN reported on Monday.

"I will not prejudge the amount," Infantino wrote, according to The Athletic. "I will support the greatest level of additional funding that can responsibly be delivered through FIFA's proper governance process, applied fairly and supported by transparent and auditable arrangements. The ambition is welcome. The financial evidence, governance and implementation must now support it.

"A single figure can begin the discussion, but it cannot complete a global policy. I have therefore instructed the Secretary General to consolidate all submissions into one integrated assessment for consideration by the FIFA Council. ..."

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and CONCACAF's Victor Montagliani recently wrote a letter to FIFA seeking payments such as the one Infantino addressed Monday. Shaikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, head of the Asian Football Confederation, made a similar request, per The Athletic.

The financial discussion comes in the wake of UEFA, CONCACAF and the AFC calling for Infantino to resign over his plan to sell approximately 20% of a proposed new entity, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), focused on the commercial and operational facets of the World Cup and other FIFA tournaments.

Among the investors in FFE was to be Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump is a close ally of Infantino.

Infantino subsequently abandoned the private equity plan, but he has refused to resign, and he plans to run for re-election in March. With seven weeks remaining for candidates to announce their intention to oppose Infantino, no challenger has stepped forward.

Had Infantino's FFE plan gone through, each member nation would have received at least $20 million. The letter from UEFA and CONCACAF asks for every member association to get a minimum of $10 million from FIFA's reserves, according to ESPN.

-Field Level Media/Reuters