Cameroon Football Federation president Samuel Eto’o urges African chiefs to back FIFA chief Gianni Infantino

Cameroon Football Federation president Samuel Eto’o has urged African football chiefs to support Gianni Infantino, crediting the FIFA president with accelerating the development of the continent’s associations and allowing more countries to reach the World Cup.

“President Gianni Infantino has changed football,” Eto’o said in an interview with French sports newspaper L’Equipe.

“Mr Infantino has helped our continent. He has helped our federations develop much more quickly, and we have to recognise that. We should support him for everything he has achieved so far.”

His comments contrast with UEFA’s increasingly confrontational position towards the FIFA president, underlining the differing priorities of African and European football leaders.

“He has given opportunities to nations that had never had the chance to take part in the greatest tournament of all, the World Cup,” the former Cameroon forward added.

Infantino said that he would seek re-election at the FIFA Congress on March 18, 2027.

Africa had nine direct places at the expanded 48-team World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States this summer, compared with five at the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

UEFA opposed the now-abandoned proposal to transfer commercial rights connected to the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup to a new subsidiary, FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), with outside investors taking a stake.

While FIFA said the project had been permanently withdrawn, European football’s governing body has continued to challenge its handling of the plan and has sought permission from a US court to obtain evidence for a potential criminal complaint in Switzerland against Infantino and other FIFA officials and advisers.

UEFA also said it would work with partners and stakeholders to propose a new way of distributing resources through the existing FIFA Forward programme.

Eto’o, however, considered that African federations could not be expected to view FIFA policy in the same way as wealthier football nations, as they also relied heavily on government funding.

“When you see some federations with budgets of 150,000 euros, how can they compete against the big countries?” he said. “We will never be able to have the same perception of things as the big countries.”

Eto’o added that the shortage of resources also contributed to African countries losing potential talent to Europe.

“If we in Cameroon had the possibility of relying on a budget of $20m or $40m per year, of course we would have had players like [Kylian] Mbappe and [Aurelien] Tchouameni,” he said, referring to the France internationals, who have Cameroonian family ties.

“UEFA is an important confederation for FIFA. It contributes enormously to football, but it should not be considered the only or the most important confederation,” he added.