"I don't think that President Gianni Infantino has done anything wrong." On CNN, the line is striking less for what it says than for who says it: Samuel Eto'o, president of the Cameroonian Football Federation, speaking at a moment when the FIFA boss has never looked more isolated. Seven months before the presidential election set for 17 March 2027 in Rabat, UEFA is brandishing the threat of a competition boycott, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation are demanding a change of leadership, and a no-confidence vote becomes legally possible as soon as 20% of the 211 member federations — roughly forty — request it.
Faced with that revolt, Eto'o isn't offering lukewarm support. On the timing of the attacks: "I think the timing of all of that is because there's an election coming up, when Gianni Infantino is standing." On the outgoing president's record: "He's changed football. He's given opportunities to nations that didn't have those opportunities to take part in the most beautiful tournament, the World Cup." And on Africa: "He has helped our continent. He's helped our federations to develop much more quickly, and we need to acknowledge that."
An honest op-ed can't stop there, though, and the most serious criticism deserves to be raised before the figures that complicate it. Depending this heavily on a single donor is nothing like sovereignty regained. Irregularities in the handling of FIFA Forward funds have been documented in both Nigeria and Congo. The money goes first to elite competitions, far less to the grassroots game, which remains the poor relation. And African officials have, on the whole, swallowed the reforms without much debate over their sustainability — Eto'o's own FECAFOOT included.
Even so, the figures don't lie either. Africa's World Cup places rose from five to nine between earlier editions and the 2026 tournament. FIFA Forward has injected more than a billion dollars into African football since 2016, a sum expected to near 1.3 billion by year's end. The "Football for Schools" programme, launched in 2019, now runs in 46 countries on the continent; the first two FIFA talent academies opened in 2025, in Nouakchott and Djibouti, with roughly twenty more promised by 2027. To grasp the scale, look at one small federation: Togo draws about 30% of its budget from FIFA.
The real issue Eto'o raises, though, isn't a balance-sheet one — it's the talent drain. He points to a now-shelved redistribution plan he wants reopened: "It would have reset the balance of power in football to ensure that our talent doesn't disappear and end up playing for other nations." His blunt line sums it up: "I would like to see Mbappé play for Cameroon." Behind the provocation sits a reality every generation has repeated for decades — the continent's best dual-nationals choose Europe, and Africa trains a talent pool it never keeps.
That same logic underpins the proposed pan-African championship of 20 to 24 clubs, a maximum of two per country, run alongside the domestic leagues — what Infantino himself has called "a true revolution of African football." The idea: give African clubs a shop window and revenues that let them retain players instead of selling them at sixteen. Its feasibility is debatable. The problem it targets is not.
Nor is Eto'o handing over a blank cheque. He argues that those who attacked the plan "haven't properly read what it's all about," and is calling for it to be rewritten rather than buried. That is precisely the nuance separating clear-eyed support from blind loyalty: back the man who, for now, is moving money toward the South, while demanding that money move better — with transparency and real oversight.
Underneath that stance sits a simpler question than it first appears. The alternative to Infantino isn't a better model for Africa — it's a restoration led by UEFA, in which the continent would slide back to five World Cup places and an outstretched hand. The confederations calling for his head are precisely the ones losing relative power as the pie gets carved up differently. That an African is the one saying so publicly isn't a scandal — it's a sign that, for once, the continent has something concrete of its own to defend in this power struggle.
For a century, Africa produced the world's football without ever shaping how it was governed. Eto'o's bet comes down to one line: an imperfect ally who shifted the balance of power beats a purity of principle that never changed anything. You can call the calculation cynical. It is, at least, hard to call it baseless.
