African silence raises suspicion and threatens Infantino's throne: the continent's history exposes broken promises

Silence has become the language of African federations amid the storm engulfing the future of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, even though the man relies on them entirely to remain in his post.

CAF moved quickly to back Infantino, according to Reuters, setting the Confederation on a collision course with three continents demanding he clarify his controversial plan to carve off the commercial rights of the World Cup. Yet nothing guarantees that all 54 African nations will fall into line behind that official stance.

Infantino remains hugely popular in Africa after doubling FIFA's grants to the federations across a decade in charge. A collective African vote in the elections of 17 March in Morocco still looks out of reach. The continent's history is littered with broken ranks.

Africans with no electoral loyalty

The continent that represents a quarter of FIFA's votes has grown accustomed to letting down its leadership. In 1998, despite CAF's alliance with the European Lennart Johansson, the African federations voted by an overwhelming majority for his rival Sepp Blatter.

Four years later, when CAF's own president Issa Hayatou stood against Blatter, most African nations backed the Swiss and handed him a second term by a sweeping majority.

History repeated itself in 2016. Despite CAF's support for Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, numerous African votes carried Infantino to victory in the second round. Even in the race to host the 2026 World Cup, despite the organisation's support for Morocco, 11 African nations backed the North American tripartite bid amid the Western Sahara dispute.

Fragile support liable to collapse

African support for Infantino looks strong on the surface. It could evaporate the moment the European, Asian and North American rebellion intensifies, according to interviews conducted by Reuters with the leaders of African federations.

Every African federation had sent messages of support to Infantino during the FIFA Congress in Vancouver last April. That came before the disclosure of his plan to sell a share of future World Cups, which ignited the anger of UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF.

Many federation presidents voiced their astonishment at the strength of the reaction against Infantino, preferring to stay silent while awaiting a real challenger before the final deadline for nominations on 18 November.

Behind that silence, Infantino picked up declared official support over the past week from Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mathurin de Chacus, president of the Benin federation and a member of CAF's executive committee, said: "I see no reason not to support him", while Alexandre Muyengi of Burundi said: "He is a president who does everything necessary to support Africa, especially the less wealthy nations. His record is full of achievements, so it makes sense to support him".

Any candidate needs a simple majority of 106 votes out of 211 federations to win the FIFA presidency. Infantino ran unopposed in both the 2019 and 2023 elections.

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