• Four leagues says Fifa governance ‘not fit for purpose’

• They criticise ‘expansionism’ and want more input

The Premier League has joined forces with La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga to call for urgent governance reform at Fifa after the World Cup sell-off debacle (FFE) as Gianni Infantino prepares to seek a fourth term as president.

Their strongly worded statement is the latest indication that Infantino’s willingness to hold an external governance review does not go far enough, after the Guardian revealed that several Fifa council members have rejected that proposal.

• Council members also want Balogun affair included

• Fifa president says review letter been well received

Fifa council members will demand that Gianni Infantino include the abandoned World Cup sell-off plan and the Folarin Balogun affair in his proposed external review of Fifa’s governance.

In a letter sent to all 211 of Fifa’s member associations on Monday, Infantino said he would ask the council to commission a review of “Fifa’s current governance framework for major strategic initiatives” at its next meeting, in Zurich on 15 October, but he faces an internal battle over its terms of reference.

Fifa president continues to lobby for re-election despite no other candidates coming forward to challenge him

For Gianni Infantino there is no international break. The Fifa president is widely expected to make an appearance at the United Nations general assembly this week in New York, where he will lobby heads of state for their federations’ support as he continues his campaign to be re-elected next year.

Infantino has not been idle during the lull since Fifa abandoned its World Cup sell-off plan last month, instead crisscrossing the globe on a private jet provided by Qatar Airways as part of its sponsorship deal with world football’s governing body.

• Payout of at least $10m to each association proposed

• Leaders want plan to be considered by Fifa Council

The presidents of Uefa and Concacaf have written to Gianni Infantino requesting that Fifa release money from its $6bn (£4.5bn) reserves to its member associations, stating that the plan to fund them via the doomed Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme was unnecessary given the cash pile it is sitting on.

Aleksander Ceferin and Victor Montagliani proposed a payout of at least $10m to each of Fifa’s 211 member associations (MAs), initially as a one-off during the 2027-2030 commercial cycle. They called for an independent review of Fifa’s financial position and said their own study “raises an important question as to whether the proposed transaction was necessary to deliver greater resources to the MAs”.

• Letter sent before Fifa council meeting on 15 October

• Infantino under pressure before presidential election

The Football Association’s chair, Debbie Hewitt, has written to Gianni Infantino demanding that Fifa releases all documents relating to his abandoned World Cup sell-off plan and the decision to lift the USA striker Folarin Balogun’s suspension during last summer’s tournament.

The Guardian revealed last month that Hewitt and other members of the Fifa council were lobbying for an independent review of the proposed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) sell-off and the Balogun controversy. Their requests have been formalised in a letter sent to the Fifa president and his deputy, Mattias Grafström.

The World Cup and its aftermath made clear that Fifa needs independent oversight by governments and NGOs dedicated to preserving the people’s game

The 2026 World Cup was a whirling swirl of scintillating soccer that prompted much-needed conversations about the vitality of diaspora, the fortitude of the underdog, the power of sport. In a world fractured along myriad cultural axes floating in an entertainment system dominated by on-demand content, the tournament provided a moment, perhaps unlike any other event, that brought together people from different backgrounds to simultaneously experience something meaningful.

After the tournament concluded, Fifa president Gianni Infantino dropped a political pipebomb into the after-party, proposing to privatize the World Cup by injecting $20bn in private capital, with an assist from JP Morgan and Thrive Capital, the investment vehicle orchestrated by Joshua Kushner, brother to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

• ‘Image and unity’ of game affected, FFF president says

• It will consult sacked former Fifa official Kevin Lamour

The French Football Federation’s president, Philippe Diallo, said Gianni Infantino had “seriously damaged the image and the unity of football” as he announced the end of France’s support for the Fifa president’s re-election.

The FFF’s executive committee unanimously voted on Thursday to withdraw its backing, which had been formalised at the end of June. Diallo referred to “events during the World Cup” which had “flagrantly gone against the way we believe our sport should be run” and to Infantino’s World Cup sell-off plan, which was revealed in July and scrapped after a widespread backlash.

• Critics view Fernandes job as move to shore up position

• Fifa says change is designed to make sport ‘truly global’

Gianni Infantino has separated Fifa’s management of the Caribbean countries from the rest of Concacaf in a move widely regarded by his opponents as an attempt to split the alliance to remove him from office.

Concacaf covers North and Central America as well as the Caribbean and was previously managed as one bloc. But the Guardian has learned that the former Switzerland midfielder Gelson Fernandes, an Infantino loyalist, has been appointed as the director of member associations for the Caribbean, in addition to his position looking after Fifa’s African members.

• Letter alleges Fifa president ‘has abused his power’

• Donald Trump links and FFE scandal among objections

More than 100,000 people have added their names to a complaint against Gianni Infantino, alleging the Fifa president has “at a minimum, abused his power, violated his duty of political neutrality, and violated his duty of loyalty” through his interactions with Donald Trump.

The Reboot Fifa campaign was launched before the World Cup with the aim of delivering “the biggest complaint Fifa has ever received” over the organisation’s alleged failings of governance. The campaign has since extended the scope of its accusations to include the reversal of the ban for Folarin Balogun at the tournament and the aborted Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme.

• Infantino is under pressure to resign after sell-off plan

• Uefa has led calls for president to quit

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has reiterated his desire to stand for re-election next year despite the continuing controversy surrounding his leadership.

Infantino refused to answer questions about his future when asked by reporters at the Women’s Under-20 World Cup in Poland on Saturday. The 56-year-old Swiss is under severe pressure to resign after trying to sell stakes in Fifa tournaments, including the World Cup, to private investors.

The order of discovery related to Fifa’s failed plan to sell the World Cup will worry the American president, a situation that tends to end badly for the culprit

“Tell Mike it was just business. I always liked him.”

“He understands.”

• Fifa filed motion opposing Uefa’s request for discovery

• Uefa said to be considering criminal case v Gianni Infantino

Attorneys representing Fifa have hit back at Uefa’s request for discovery in a US federal filing earlier this week. The lawyers called Uefa’s legal efforts “little more than press releases in further support of [a] smear campaign against Fifa and its leadership” and requested the judge assigned to the case dismiss the request.

The filing requests that Fifa US, a subsidiary business unit of Fifa, be permitted to officially opposite the request for discovery by 30 September.

Uefa has begun a legal process against the embattled Fifa president but it will still be an uphill struggle to remove him

Anyone who interpreted Uefa’s decision to withdraw a proposed boycott of Fifa competitions, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as a backward step in the attempt to remove Gianni Infantino as Fifa’s president has been quickly disabused of that notion.

In a stunning development that overshadowed one of the biggest days in the European football calendar as national football federation and club executives gathered for the Champions League draw in Monte Carlo, Uefa announced it was preparing to make a legal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland alleging “criminal mismanagement” for his role in the failed World Cup sell-off plan.

• Uefa says claims will be made in Switzerland

• It says claims relate to alleged criminal mismanagement

Uefa is preparing to make a criminal complaint against Gianni Infantino for alleged “criminal mismanagement” in connection with his failed Fifa Forward Enterprise plan and has applied for the release of documents related to its conception.

In an explosive escalation of the war engulfing football’s governing bodies, Uefa has made separate applications in the United States for information, including from Fifa and the investment firm Thrive Capital.

• Uefa has received guarantees after ill-fated Infantino plan

• European sides will go to under-20 Women’s World Cup

Uefa is to drop its threatened boycott of Fifa competitions after receiving concrete guarantees that the global governing body will never attempt a repeat of Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup.

European teams have been cleared for participation in the upcoming Under-20 Women’s World Cup, along with subsequent tournaments, after Fifa provided the binding assurances that no equivalent of its president’s ill-fated scheme will be put on the table.

• President accused by ‘Fifa Legends’ of being power hungry

• Samuel Eto’o claims chief has not ‘done anything wrong’

A group of influential current and former footballers have added to the pressure on Gianni Infantino by calling for change at the top of Fifa, saying “enough is enough” in a statement shared widely across social media.

The intervention is particularly significant given some of those behind its circulation have undertaken ambassadorial activities for Fifa as part of its “Fifa Legends” programme. Among them is the former Manchester United and Arsenal defender Mikaël Silvestre, who also sits on the governing body’s 16-member players’ voice panel designed to assist with anti-racism initiatives.

• Gianni Infantino used opportunity to lobby for support

• Fifa president was asked to stay away from CFU meeting

Gianni Infantino has risked alienating numerous Concacaf nations, whose support he is seeking in his re-election campaign, by hijacking a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to announce Fifa-funded development projects for the region with millions of dollars that had been delayed for months.

Multiple sources attending the CFU meeting in the Dominican Republic said many of the Concacaf members were infuriated by Infantino’s behaviour, particularly as he had been asked to stay away by their president, Victor Montagliani.

• African federations sound out Swede over role

• ‘They think he can group all the continents’

Senior figures in African football have held talks with Fifa’s general secretary, Mattias Grafström, to sound out his interest in standing against Gianni Infantino, the Guardian can reveal.

As many as 15 federations in Africa are also said to be ready to turn their backs on Infantino when he seeks re-election as Fifa president next year, despite the Confederation of Africa Football (Caf) claiming that its executive committee (exco) had “unanimously reconfirmed” its support for the under-fire 56-year-old.

• Fifa president tells Sky man: ‘You have a nice haircut’

• Defies Concacaf president plea to stay away ​from event

Gianni Infantino told a reporter “I’ll see you at the hairdresser’s” after he was asked whether he had betrayed football over his aborted World Cup sell-off plan.

The Fifa president was stopped outside a hotel in the Dominican Republic by the Sky News US correspondent, James Matthews, who challenged the under-fire leader of football’s governing body over why he had not resigned, despite calls from across the game for him to step down.

Nie zuvor hat sich der Fußball so weit von seinen Wurzeln entfernt wie bei der WM. Statt Menschen mit Senfresten im Bart saß da ein Defilee der Feinfrisierten auf den Rängen. Eine Chance für die gute alte Bundesliga zu zeigen, wo die Grenzen der Gier sind.