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August 27 – The Romanian Football Federation (FRF) has joined various other European football associations in ‘losing confidence’ in FIFA President Gianni Infantino and will not support the Swiss-Italian’s re-election bid. The FRF was one of few European associations who had not sent a support letter for Infantino and they will refrain from backing him for re-election following the abandoned plans to privatise the World Cup. FRF President Răzvan Burleanu called the moment an “unprecedented crisis.” He said: “This simply means that we will not vote for him unless he withdraws and runs in March 2027. Almost a month has passed since we have been in this crisis, and Gianni Infantino has not called any member of the board of which I am a member to provide further explanations, but also guarantees that this initiative to sell football, this privatisation of football will not be resumed in the future.” A FIFA Council member, Burleanu also singled out the dismissal of Kevin Lamour and threats by FIFA directors to bring certain members back into line. Last weekend, Infantino flew to the Caribbean to rally support among CFU members and on Wednesday, he attended the ASEAN Cup final between Vietnam and Thailand. Burleanu said: “I believe that it is a tactical mistake that Gianni Infantino made, which shows that we are rather entering a zone of revenge and that, in fact, he is leading FIFA in a dictatorial style, exactly what, practically, the three confederations are accusing FIFA of at the moment. “At the same time, instead of practically identifying this gap in good governance that we have all discovered and having a proposal for a change in governance, in organisational culture, it seems that Gianni Infantino has even authorised one of the FIFA directors to already move on to threats towards certain national associations. Something that, certainly, we will talk about in the coming weeks. So that is how things are and that is why our position, without any ambiguity, is very strong.” Contact the writer of this story, Samindra Kunti, at [email protected]