Can Gianni Infantino actually be removed? What the rules say, and who would replace him

More national associations are withdrawing their support for Gianni Infantino, and the question that seemed unthinkable a month ago is now being asked openly across world football.

The FIFA president had appeared certain of a final term. He was the only declared candidate for next year's election, and he had spent a decade building support among the smaller member associations who make up most of the electorate.

Then came a plan to sell part of the World Cup, and the arithmetic that once looked comfortable began to shift.

The plan was called FIFA Forward Enterprise. According to Al Jazeera, it aimed to raise around $4.2bn by selling a stake in the commercial rights to the World Cup and other FIFA tournaments to private investors.

It was abandoned after opposition from UEFA, from national associations and from much of the football industry. But abandoning it has not ended the argument, and FIFA has since complained publicly of what it describes as an organised campaign to undermine its president.

So can he actually be removed? The answer depends far less on how loud the opposition is than on how many votes it can count.

The rules, and the numbers that matter

There are two routes, and both come down to member associations.

The first is removal before the election. That requires 43 of FIFA's 211 member associations to trigger a no-confidence vote at an extraordinary congress. UEFA has the numbers to force that meeting, but forcing a meeting and winning the vote inside it are different problems.

An emergency meeting of the FIFA Council is the other possibility, though gathering the support for one may prove just as difficult.

The second route is the election itself, and here the dates matter.

The vote takes place in March 2027. Anyone intending to stand must declare by 18 November this year. To win, a candidate needs the backing of 106 of the 211 members, and that is a simple majority.

As things stand, nobody has declared against him.

That matters more than anything else in this story.

An election needs somebody to elect. However many associations decide they want Infantino gone, they cannot vote him out in March unless there is another name on the ballot paper.

CNN's analysis expects that to change, concluding that a challenger will almost certainly come forward before the vote. That would make it the first contested FIFA presidential election since Infantino won the job in 2016.

Until someone does, though, the opposition has plenty of anger and nowhere to direct it.

Who has walked away

The withdrawals began in Europe and have not stopped there.

Finland was first to send a formal letter withdrawing support. Serbia, Sweden, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Wales followed. The Football Association of Wales said the failures in governance and judgment had cost Infantino its confidence.

England joined them. According to the country-by-country account compiled by The Independent, the FA remained deeply concerned about the lack of process and governance around the sell-off scheme, and an apology letter circulated by Infantino did not change its position.

Germany and Denmark never endorsed him in the first place, so had nothing to withdraw. The Netherlands has declared a loss of confidence without yet sending a letter. Romania has suspended its support pending further explanation.

Norway has gone furthest. Federation president Lise Klaveness has called for Infantino to resign immediately, saying the trust is gone and there is no way back.

UEFA itself maintains a boycott of FIFA competitions, and says it has received no assurances that an attempt of this kind will not be made again.

Beyond Europe, Concacaf has called for a comprehensive reckoning with the presidency. The Asian Football Confederation has demanded an urgent review of FIFA's governance. The two have since issued a joint statement with UEFA.

Jordan is so far the only association outside Europe to break publicly with him. The global players' union FIFPRO has accused him of abusing the powers of his office. Canada's prime minister Mark Carney has said he has no confidence in him.

Who is standing by him

Here is where the arithmetic turns.

The African confederation, CAF, has backed Infantino unanimously. Its 54 member associations amount to more than a quarter of FIFA's entire membership, and they have been joined by Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, DR Congo, Mauritania, Niger, Comoros, Malawi, Uganda, Gambia and Djibouti individually.

The reasoning is not hard to follow, and the federations involved have stated it plainly. Comoros pointed out that their central problem is finding money at all, with no sponsors and no realistic way to compete with richer nations on infrastructure or player development. Malawi's football chief noted that his government struggles to keep hospitals supplied with medicines, let alone fund football.

Gambia said it would do everything within its means to see him re-elected.

Not everyone in Africa agrees. Isha Johansen, formerly of Sierra Leone's federation and a past FIFA Council member, has questioned what price African football is paying for that development money.

Support extends well beyond Africa. Qatar was the first association anywhere to back him publicly. Kuwait, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia and Bhutan have all followed.

In the Americas, Argentina broke first, followed by Mexico and Paraguay, which puts three South and North American federations at odds with their own confederations.

Two significant blocs remain undeclared. Conmebol has expressed concern about unilateral decision-making without saying whether it still backs the president. Oceania has not stated a position at all.

Why the maths favours him

Look at the two lists together and something becomes obvious, and it has very little to do with who is right.

The federations turning against Infantino are, almost without exception, the wealthy ones. The federations standing by him are the ones that rely on FIFA money to run their game at all.

There are many more of the second kind than the first.

And FIFA does not weight its votes. It makes no difference how many trophies a country has won, how many people live there, or what its league is worth.

England gets one vote. So does Bhutan.

That is how Infantino can lose England, Germany, the Netherlands and most of Scandinavia inside a fortnight and still be the favourite. Losing that many European federations sounds enormous, but set against 211 members it simply is not.

It also explains why trying to remove him early is unlikely to work.

The opposition's real chance is the election in March, and even then only if it can find somebody to put up against him.

Who could replace him

Nobody has declared, and the deadline is 18 November. But according to Yahoo Sports, several names are being discussed.

Victor Montagliani is the most frequently mentioned. The Concacaf president sits as one of eight vice-presidents on the 37-member FIFA Council, previously ran Canadian Soccer, helped bring the 2026 World Cup to Canada and launched the Canadian Premier League. British reporting last month suggested he is already positioning for a run.

Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa has led the AFC since 2013 and is a senior vice-president on the FIFA Council. He signed the Asian confederation's critical letter and has publicly opposed expanding the World Cup to 64 teams.

Aleksander Čeferin has run UEFA since 2016 and is a long-standing critic. He did not attend this summer's World Cup final in protest at FIFA's handling of the Folarin Balogun red card. He had intended to step down from UEFA, though he is reportedly willing to stand again if nobody else emerges.

Lise Klaveness is a former Norway international turned lawyer, and has been challenging Infantino publicly since 2022, when she criticised the process that awarded the World Cup to Qatar. She filed an ethics complaint against FIFA last month.

Nasser Al-Khelaifi runs Paris Saint-Germain, chairs beIN Media Group and Qatar Sports Investments, and has chaired the European Club Association since 2021. A representative has said he has no interest in the FIFA job.

Arsène Wenger has been FIFA's chief of global football development since 2019. He has said he knew nothing about the sell-off plan and that dropping it was necessary.

Mattias Grafström, FIFA's secretary general, described the episode privately to staff as a regrettable sequence of events, in an email later reported by the Associated Press. He has since publicly backed the president, which may make him too close to Infantino to be a credible alternative.

Montagliani and Al Khalifa share one problem. Both of their confederation terms expire in 2027, which complicates the timing of any move.

What happens next

Three dates now govern this.

18 November is when the field becomes clear. If no challenger declares, Infantino stands unopposed and the opposition's only remaining option is an extraordinary congress it may not win.

March 2027 is the election, and the first genuinely contested one in more than a decade if a candidate emerges.

Between the two sits everything else: whether UEFA's boycott holds, whether Conmebol and Oceania declare, and whether the federations now backing Infantino are doing so out of conviction or out of dependence.

He can be removed. Forty-three associations could force the vote, and 106 could end his presidency in March.

The harder question is whether the people who want him gone can agree on somebody to replace him before the deadline, and on current evidence that remains some way from settled.