Infantino Under Pressure as FIFA Council Demands Answers Over Secret Deal

Gianni Infantino is fighting to keep his job as FIFA president after a tense council meeting in Zurich, where a senior board member said he would not be fit for office if he keeps refusing to answer questions.

The 56-year-old faced a three-and-a-half-hour grilling on Thursday over FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), a secret plan that would have handed a big chunk of FIFA's commercial rights to private investors. The proposal was dropped just days after it came to light.

Infantino apologised in the meeting for not consulting the council before talking to outside financiers. But representatives from Europe and North America wanted more than that. They demanded full access to the documents from the failed talks.

Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt, who is also a FIFA vice-president, was one of the loudest critics. She said she accepted the apology but it did not rebuild trust, mainly because Infantino would not answer direct questions about the FFE papers. The meeting was described as having "no holds barred."

Hewitt made it clear that time is running out for him. "I think the man has to answer those questions and if he doesn't answer those questions now, he's not fit to be FIFA president," she told BBC Sport.

The council is still in the dark about the details of the deal, and the pressure on Infantino is only growing.