The German Football Association will refuse to support FIFA President Gianni Infantino if he is re-elected.
The DFB announced this a few hours before the 73rd congress of the world association on Thursday (8 a.m. CET) in Kigali. President Bernd Neuendorf, as leader of the German delegation, left his voting behavior open until the very end and tied his support to clear conditions.
“FIFA must become much more open and transparent”
“The DFB will not support the re-election of FIFA President Gianni Infantino in Kigali”Neuendorf said on Wednesday: “In the past few weeks, we have received little or no information from FIFA on various issues. FIFA needs to be much more open and transparent in its dealings with the national associations.”
The world association should in future “Explain in your own interest how and why certain decisions are made and who was involved in them. That has not always been the case recently”, Neuendorf continues. Got it on Wednesday “There was a constructive exchange between several European associations and the FIFA leadership on controversial issues. Together we hope that future cooperation will improve.” He’s hoping for one “Critical-Constructive Dialogue”.
Opposing candidate “senseless”
The association with the largest number of members, like all other nations, had refrained from nominating an alternative solution to Infantino in November. “It would have been pointless to send an opponent into the race who didn’t stand a chance.”, Neuendorf justified this at the time. Before the DFB, some countries had already announced that they would vote against Infantino, with Norway led by association president Lise Klaveness, Sweden and Denmark.
election by acclamation
But hardly anyone in the world is likely to notice anything about the opposition. The FIFA statutes allow an individual candidate to be elected by acclamation, i.e. with applause. The exact size of the opposition remains so well in secret. Each of the 211 national associations has one vote in the election, no matter how big or small.