“There were no satisfactory answers,” reported Neuendorf after the meeting with Infantino

Europe's football officials around DFB boss Bernd Neuendorf are sticking to their call for the president of the world football association to resign, even after an apology from Gianni Infantino at the FIFA Council meeting. “We asked a lot of critical questions, but in my opinion there were no satisfactory answers,” said Neuendorf after the more than three and a half hour meeting in Zurich.

The council meeting was Infantino's first meeting with his opponents since his massively controversial idea for a World Cup investor plan in the summer. Infantino actually began the meeting by apologizing to his colleagues on the council for catching them off guard and causing an uproar with his plan. “He said that with a certain amount of remorse,” reported FIFA vice-president Debbie Hewitt.

Infantino listened to the meeting and promised to answer all topics. "The man has to answer these questions. If he doesn't answer these questions then he's not fit to be FIFA president," Hewitt said. However, Infantino did not give a time frame for the answers. The results were “thin,” said Neuendorf.

The Europeans have until November 18th to nominate a possible opponent for the upcoming FIFA presidential election in March 2027 who will challenge Infantino. "As I said, trust in him has been lost. New people now have to develop new ideas and it has to be clarified how we can put this organization, which is extremely important for world football, on a serious footing," said Neuendorf.

It was decided to form a working group under the leadership of FIFA Vice President Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim al Khalifa. It is intended to reorganize the global association's governance structure so that going it alone on important projects such as Infantino's World Cup investor plans is no longer possible in the future.

By the next Council meeting on December 16th in Doha, a decision should also be made on the future of the FIFA Peace Prize, which Infantino grotesquely awarded to US President Donald Trump last year. The plan was to increase annual subsidies to all 211 national football associations from around $10 to around $25 million - a proposal that Infantino had put forward shortly before the meeting.

According to Hewitt, the proposal for a new regulation on the punishment of red cards was rejected. After the World Cup turmoil surrounding the lifting of the ban for US player Folarin Balogun - following the intervention of Trump and Infantino - there should no longer be any possibility of appealing the minimum penalty of one game in the future.