Internal dissent proved equally damaging. FIFA's chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said the administration had been "deceived" about the project. Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino's senior adviser on global strategy and governance and a former Goldman Sachs banker who represented FIFA on the White House World Cup task force, resigned Friday, calling the proposal "a bad deal for football" that would "mortgage football's future." Cordeiro stated he had no involvement in the secretive plan.
Infantino initially vowed to continue. By Friday night, he reversed course. "Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place," he said in a statement. "As a result, this proposal will not proceed."
UEFA's response was scathing. "The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA's confidence but also that of many other members of the football family," the European body said in a statement Saturday. It accused Infantino of failing to deliver on transparency promises made during his 2016 presidential campaign, quoting his pledge that "the money of FIFA is your money" and that FIFA must be transparent. "The shabby, back room, opaque deal he hatched and tried to force through were anything but transparent," UEFA said. It called for identifying those responsible and holding them to account.