Image source, Getty Images

With that, we will bring down our live coverage of this story but the fallout from Gianni Infantino's abandoned Fifa Forward Enterprise plans continues as Uefa today doubled down on its stands to potentially boycott competitions, including the World Cup.

Before you go, here is a look back at the key developments we covered today:

• Uefa could still boycott World Cup
• European football body's latest statement in full
• FA officially withdraw support of Infantino
• It comes despite Fifa backing its president last night
• But Conmebol will not back vote to oust Infantino
• Lamour, who criticised Infantino, not invited to meeting of senior Fifa officials
• Here's a timeline of how Infantino's plan unravelled
• What could happen next?
• How can Infantino turn things around?

Read more on this story by clicking here

Thanks for joining us, and for your comments and opinions throughout the day.

Ian Williams
BBC Sport Africa

I’ve been told Gianni Infantino was not his usual gregarious self at last night’s meeting of Fifa’s management board, a likely acknowledgement of the serious nature of the situation he finds himself in.

The meeting ended up taking place in Morocco simply because of Infantino’s diary and the fact Fifa has an office there.

The Fifa boss had been hoping for a bit of down time after attending the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and keeping a pre-arranged date with King Mohammed VI, who last week celebrated 27 years since he came to power.

As Infantino looks to cling to power himself, reports that the Swiss has promised Morocco it will hold the final of the 2030 World Cup have been denied. The North African kingdom is co-hosting with Spain and Portugal.

At this stage, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation will not be adding anything new to its previous statements of support for Infantino, but Caf could well say something once its executive committee meeting, which is being held virtually, finishes.

Presidents from all Fifpro regional divisions have signed the international player union's statement, including Fifpro Africa - despite five of the seven African countries on the Fifa Council having already publicly backed Gianni Infantino.

Their statement says confidence in Fifa under Infantino "has now been fundamentally broken. It cannot be rebuilt through carefully drafted statements, or internal reviews or promises to improve processes. Nor can it be restored simply by announcing governance and structural reforms that should always have existed.

"These reforms are now indispensable. But they are the responsibility of the future, not an absolution of the past.

"The players did not create this crisis. They will insist that football emerges from it with stronger institutions, stronger safeguards and leadership worthy of the trust the game demands."

European teams could still boycott competitions including the World Cup as Uefa says Fifa's defence of its president Gianni Infantino "changes nothing".

The English FA also confirmed it has sent a letter withdrawing their support for Infantino in reaction to the plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors.

European governing body Uefa said - in a statement - its conditions had not been met despite that plan being aborted.

"First, the proposals to sell off the major competitions had to be withdrawn and secondly, assurances have to be made that such attempts to disfigure the game in this way will never be made again.

"These conditions have not been met."

Uefa has already said it has lost confidence in Infantino, calling the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal a "shabby, back room, opaque deal".

The full story from the BBC's Dan Roan and Dale Johnson will be available on the BBC Sport website shortly.

In an attempt to "ensure these events can never be repeated" Fifpro have sent a list demands to Fifa:

• Embedding the Global Social Dialogue Platform as a real, permanent and structural part of FIFA's governance, not a mechanism to be bypassed at will.
• Legally binding engagement with professional football's stakeholders on decisions of major consequence, including the international match calendar, competition expansion and other matters that fundamentally affect the professional game.
• Voting rights for professional football's stakeholders on the Fifa Council, together with a clear and formally recognised role for Fifpro as the global representative of professional footballers.
• Governance and structural reforms that make it impossible for any individual, ever again, to drive unilateral decisions through the game.

Fifpro, the international football players' union, have released a statement calling for "governance reforms" within FIFA:

Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) is gone. The abuse of power that produced it is not. Governance reforms, not a cover-up, are urgently needed.

The withdrawal of FFE was inevitable. But withdrawing the proposal does not erase what it revealed.

A plan capable of permanently altering the ownership and governance of the FIFA World Cup, and commercialising the competitions built by generations of players, was conceived in secrecy, negotiated behind closed doors and brought to the brink of agreement before the FIFA Council, the Member Associations, players and football’s recognised stakeholders even knew it existed.

That is not merely a governance failure. It is a profound abuse of presidential power.

The FA have officially withdrawn their support for Fifa president Gianni Infantino in a letter sent today, BBC Sport can confirm.

Conmebol's statement reads: "Football belongs to everyone.

"Its future can only be built on the basis of respect for institutional governance, sound governance and the democratic procedures that represent Fifa's 211 Member Associations.

"On 18 November 2026, the deadline for submitting candidacies for the Fifa Presidency will expire. Thereafter, the Fifa Congress will elect, through the votes of its 211 Member Associations, the person who will lead the organization during the next term, including overseeing the organization of the Fifa Centennial World Cup 2030.

"Accordingly, Conmebol will not support any action or procedure that disregards or departs from those institutional mechanisms.

"The Conmebol Council calls for preserving the unity of the football family, acting with institutional responsibility, strengthening dialogue and fully respecting the mechanisms of governance.

"Because, above all differences, football comes first."

More on the breaking news out of Conmebol.

After a meeting of the Conmebol council today, South American football's governing body has welcomed Fifa's decision to withdraw the Fifa Forward Enterprise proposal.

However, it is not backing an extraordinary congress to vote on the future of Fifa president Gianni Infantino.

Instead, Conmebol wants to stick to the current process - anyone who wants to run against Infantino at the 2027 Fifa congress must come forward by 18 November.

Peter Gillibrand
BBC Newsbeat

As Gianni Infantino tries to cling onto power, BBC Newsbeat has been speaking to young football fans to get their reaction to his apology.

"I don’t really know what Infantino thought the reaction would be to the news that he’s going to sell off the World Cup," says England fan Dan.

"The fact that he’s now come grovelling back saying sorry, I’m not sure if this is a political play to show that he’s human.

"There’s not a single person out there that thinks he’s the right man to take Fifa forward."

Ivory Coast fan Emmanuel disagrees, telling Newsbeat he saw Infantino’s apology as genuine and feels we can all agree the sport "needs more investment".

"I viewed the apology as someone making a mistake but the intentions were in the right place," he says.

He thinks it is "good” that Infantino has apologised and is consider different options as "football is about the fans and the people".

Image source, Getty Images

The Sport & Rights Alliance have said the controversy surrounding Gianni Infantino's abandoned FFE plans should act as a catalyst for wider reform at world football's governing body.

The coalition includes organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, Reporters Without Borders and Football Supporters Europe.

"The landscape for human rights, transparency and good governance will not improve if Fifa's structures are not addressed," said its executive director Andrea Florence in a statement.

"This crisis must spur long-overdue reforms to finally embed human rights protections at the heart of world football. Only a systemic transformation that addresses the many abuses linked to Fifa's operations will prevent history repeating itself.”

Tor Dolvik, special adviser at Transparency International Norway, added: "Contrary to Infantino’s social media statements, the largest, “most-inclusive” World Cup in history saw many human rights abuses and significant sportswashing.

"Fifa's failure to follow through on its human rights commitments has tarnished Infantino’s decade as president," said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch.

"Fifa has still not financially compensated families of thousands of migrant workers who died to deliver the 2022 World Cup in Qatar."

It called for establishment of a new independent human rights advisory board, greater transparency, stronger protections for workers and communities affected by major tournaments and accountability to the media and public.

Some breaking news from South America.

Conmebol, the football federation for South American nations, will not back an extraordinary congress to vote on the future of Fifa president Gianni Infantino.

Three Conmebol nations - Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay - will host matches at the 2030 men's World Cup, while Brazil are hosting the women's tournament next year.

More to follow.

Lastly from Professor Mark Pieth, is the reign of Gianni Infantino stoppable? "I don't know what's going on behind closed doors at the moment. I'm sure people are discussing that but I just don't know how much guts they really have.

"I've several times called Uefa a bunch of wimps but I'd be happy to learn the contrary."

Image source, Getty Images

More from Professor Mark Pieth, who worked as the head of Fifa’s Independent Governance Committee during the final years of president Sepp Blatter's reign: "Infantino has been overdoing it dramatically. He has been far more excessive than Blatter ever was but, and there’s a big but, that’s only possible if everyone allows him to do all of this.

"The association is democratically organised – they could vote him down, they could get rid of him etc. but they allowed him to do that and it’s only now where he really went over the top with this idea of partly selling off Fifa, that Uefa and a few others woke up.”

On whether Infantino has too much power: “There are other people saying the same things I do. There is a mistake in the overall format of this organisation.

"Of course the president has too much power and too much money and what several people have been suggesting recently is we should have something like a rotating presidency.

"One idea was the heads of confederations who are constantly present, who know the business, should be coming in for two years and then shifting and moving on and handing over to the next confederation – that would be a model that would impede somebody building up so much power and so much money.”

Image source, get

Professor Mark Pieth, anti-corruption lawyer and former head of Fifa’s Independent Governance Committee, spoke to BBC Sport: “Maybe it’s a good sign that Uefa have finally woken up. They are the people who have the responsibility of the 211 members of the association. The problem is so far, they’ve been regularly bought off. Their votes have been bought for money, they’ve been promised huge amounts of money but I think Uefa have understood they are being pushed around and they have to stand up.

“The problem is they have 55 votes out of the 211. For me, the positive news is that other smaller entities, take Jordan, have also woken up. Prince Ali who I think is a very bold and courageous person has actually said ‘we were owed money, we didn’t get it and when we reminded Infantino of it he said yes but first you vote for me’.

“If that is correct, he is right to say in this context we are being extorted."

On how Uefa were being "bought off" by Fifa: “Uefa, and not only Uefa members but all of the officials in the council have been receiving huge amounts of money and the president has been defining how much money they should be getting.

"If you look at an association like Germany – it doesn’t need that money, they are strong enough, they have six million individual members. But of course, the people who are governing that body like money and like to have their personal accounts lined.

“I think so far people have been happy to be bought off but now for various reasons, they’ve realised Infantino has been going over the top and he couldn’t see his limits anymore.”

Professor Mark Pieth, anti-corruption lawyer and former head of Fifa’s Independent Governance Committee, spoke to BBC Sport on Fifa's statement: “It was the usual strange mix – what we get is apologies mixed with mutual assurances, everybody patting each other on the back, and then we get an element of threats.

"They like each other but everyone else can shut up. It was definitely aimed at outsiders; at the media and at critics in general”

On how Fifa has changed from when he worked with the organisation, under former president Sepp Blatter: “It’s difficult to say because at the time of Blatter, there were huge gaps in its governance. For instance, when I came to that job they hadn’t even got international bookkeeping so they were just getting into the mode of governance.

“What is different now is on paper it looks like quite good but what they’re doing is they’re subverting the paper format. They’ve kicked out those independent people who were actually quite strong – I’m thinking of the Ethics committee who got rid of Blatter.

"Fifa have got rid of them because they were afraid of them and they’ve replaced them with people who you could call friends or people who are not overly tough.

“The paper format definitely comes out if you look at how Saudi Arabia got its World Cup. Fifa have a brilliant human rights policy on paper, it looks brilliant; it says anyone who does not live up to human rights standards is allowed to have a World Cup. And frankly, Saudi Arabia is one of the most problematic countries regarding human rights.”

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Before the 2026 World Cup, Gianni Infantino and Fifa promised host cities $1million as part of a "Legacy Fund Plan".

Philadelphia hosted six matches at this years World Cup - but local organisers say they have not seen any money from Fifa yet.

A statement from Philadelphia Soccer 2026 says: "Philadelphia was proud to serve as a host city for the World Cup, and we remain grateful for our partnership with Fifa.

"As of today [Wednesday 5th August 2026], Philadelphia Soccer 2026 has not yet received the contribution Fifa committed to 2026 host cities for legacy projects. We look forward to continuing our conversations with Fifa and to receiving these funds so we can continue to deliver legacy programming to our communities."

Dan Roan
BBC sports editor

BBC Sport has been told that Fifa’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour was not invited to yesterday’s meeting in Morocco at which senior executives backed under-pressure president Gianni Infantino.

Last week Lamour strongly criticised Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in competitions to private investors, claiming it was "the project of one person", and "the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions". He added that if by speaking out "I lose my job, then so be it. At least I’ll sleep well tonight."

Lamour has declined to comment, and Fifa has been approached for comment.

Image source, Getty Images

President of the Gambia Football Federation, Lamin Kaba Bajo, speaking to BBC Sport: "As far as I'm concerned, most of my colleagues are concerned, we'll encourage him [Infantino] to stay, and we'll do everything within our means to ensure that he is re-elected come next year, 2027.

"That's my personal opinion as president of the federation, and a good number of African memberships also stand on that line. He is here to stay."