Italy's football federation formally withdrew its support for FIFA president Gianni Infantino on Wednesday, joining England, Ireland and Wales in abandoning him — even as a group of World Cup-winning former players stepped forward to defend him personally the same week. [1] The institutional and individual reactions are moving in opposite directions, and this paper's Wednesday coverage of UEFA lifting its FIFA boycott while preparing criminal complaints against Infantino established the institutional half of that split. Thursday's story is about the other half: the players.
Italy's 2006 World Cup-winning captain, Fabio Cannavaro, and Brazil's Cafu, part of the 1994 and 2002 title-winning sides, posted messages supporting Infantino after another group of former players, led by Frenchman Mikael Silvestre, had called for "change" in FIFA's leadership. "Over the last ten years, world football has improved," Cannavaro wrote, "and footballers have once again taken centre stage. Infantino has done a great job... Not acknowledging that would be intellectually dishonest." Cafu wrote separately: "We have followed the work of FIFA and president Infantino to promote the representation of players in football, something that didn't exist before." [1] Brazilians Roberto Carlos, Argentines Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso, Colombia's Ivan Ramiro Cordoba and Mexico's Jared Borgetti posted similar messages of support. [1]
Al Jazeera's own report describes these as messages "posted on social media" without specifying the platform, and does not identify them as X posts. This paper's story memo flagged that ambiguity explicitly and required platform confirmation before any post could be cited as X discourse; no such confirmation was found, and no reliable X status link surfaced in search. Readers should treat the players' messages as social-media commentary of unconfirmed platform, not verified X posts — a distinction that matters because the paper's mandate is to document the specific gap between X discourse and mainstream coverage, not to assume every social post belongs to X by default.
The players' intervention was itself a reaction to an earlier one. Mikael Silvestre, the former France and Manchester United defender, had assembled his own group of ex-players calling publicly for "change" in FIFA's leadership before Cannavaro, Cafu and the others posted their messages of support. [1] That sequence — one group of legends pushing for Infantino's removal, a second group answering days later in his defense — means the players themselves are now split along roughly the same lines as the federations, even though none of them holds a vote in FIFA's governance structure. Their disagreement adds a layer of contested legitimacy to a crisis that, at the institutional level, already pits UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF against Infantino, with Africa and South America still behind him. [2]
What is clear, regardless of platform, is the shape of the split. Italy's federation, FIGC, framed its decision in institutional terms, saying it was "intended to clearly and transparently express the FIGC's position... regarding the recent initiatives promoted by the FIFA president concerning the governance and development of international competitions." [1] FIGC head Giovanni Malago pledged to "continue to work alongside UEFA and the other European federations to promote a vision of football based on merit, solidarity, sustainability and the central role of the fans." [1] That is an institution speaking for an entire national football structure. Cannavaro and Cafu's messages, by contrast, are individuals — retired players with no formal role in FIFA governance — speaking from personal standing built on what they accomplished on the pitch decades ago.
Infantino, the 56-year-old former UEFA secretary general who had broad backing from European nations when he succeeded Sepp Blatter in 2016, is now watching that same European base defect one federation at a time while a scattered set of legends vouch for him individually. [1] The former carries votes at FIFA's presidential election next March. The latter carries only reputation. Which one shapes the outcome of that vote is precisely the question Thursday's dueling reactions leave open.
The confederations pressing hardest for Infantino's exit — UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF — collectively represent the bulk of FIFA's traditional broadcast and sponsorship revenue base, giving their institutional defection more structural weight than any individual endorsement can offset. [2] But Infantino has not been passive in response. Rather than convening his full 37-member FIFA Council, where the confederations' representatives could formally register their objections, he has instead met directly with his own management team and, separately, with sympathetic federations like Saudi Arabia's — a strategy of building support member by member rather than facing a unified confederation bloc. The players' messages, whatever platform carried them, fit that same pattern: individual voices, assembled one at a time, standing in for the collective institutional support Infantino can no longer take for granted.
-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos