Mosengo-Omba says most federations still back Fifa president Infantino
Véron Mosengo-Omba told the Guardian on 18 August 2026 that Fifa president Gianni Infantino continues to have the support of most of Fifa’s member associations despite recent controversy over the Fifa Forward Enterprise plan. Mosengo-Omba, a close ally of Infantino, said that backing would be evident at the congress.
Mosengo-Omba served as Fifa’s chief member associations officer until 2021 and is now president of the Congolese Football Federation (Fecofa), having been elected unopposed in May; he is also a longtime friend of Infantino from their university days in Switzerland. Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation have published an open letter calling for “leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it”, and Fifa has accused opponents of a “concerted and ongoing effort by some to undermine Fifa and its president”. The organisation’s chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, was sacked on Monday after criticising Infantino’s plan, and Uefa has been seeking support to call an emergency congress to trigger a vote of no confidence that would require 106 of Fifa’s 211 members.
On Infantino’s standing within the membership, Mosengo-Omba said: “Most of the federations are supporting him. Just ask the congress.” He acknowledged he did not formally back Infantino on the sell-off proposal: “I didn’t send a letter of support [for Infantino] because I didn’t agree with the way the project was done. Now people are trying to attack Gianni but I’m ready to take a bullet for him.”
While defending Infantino’s overall position, Mosengo-Omba criticised how the FFE proposal was handled and set out his main concern in full: “Gianni came with a proposal. Uefa is selling the Champions League and the Euros – they are independent companies. He was doing the same. Gianni came with a similar proposal but now he has withdrawn it. So what’s the problem? What I didn’t like and where I think Gianni committed a mistake was the way it was done. Because the risk was it could have seen a lot of [private] companies organising the World Cup. That is my reproach to him.”
Mosengo-Omba recounted the FFE plan’s commercial details, saying Infantino had partnered with the US bank JP Morgan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling 21% of the World Cup’s commercial rights to investors and had promised an increase in distribution of “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) to be redistributed to Fifa’s 211 member associations. He said that initial proposals had been rejected and withdrawn, and that he was considering whether an alternative structure could be developed to generate revenue for members.
Having stepped down as general secretary of the Confederation of African Football in March after reaching the age limit, Mosengo-Omba said he still saw merit in a revised scheme: “Gianni’s project was good. I would buy it but make some changes,” he said. He outlined one idea in detail: “You could, for example, say that a confederation can buy 20%. We could do that. That’s my idea – I could come with the proposal in the next congress, maybe. Because I need money to develop football in the Congo. The people here have nothing. We would get $20m a year if this happened and that can have a big impact in my country.”
Mosengo-Omba said he may formally bring his confederation-stake proposal to the next Fifa congress, a move he argued could deliver about $20m a year to the Congo if adopted.