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Tuesday, 25 August 2026dailybeirut.com
Football
Former Manchester United defender Mikael Silvestre, speaking as a member of FIFA’s Players’ Voice Panel, declared “Enough is enough!” in a widely shared statement calling for leadership change, joined by Lucy Bronze and Emmanuel Petit amid growing pressure over FIFA’s private investor proposal.
“Enough is enough!” — those four words appeared on X on Monday as the opening line of a statement issued by Mikael Silvestre, former Manchester United defender and current member of FIFA’s Players’ Voice Panel.
Silvestre’s post marked the first public intervention from within FIFA’s official advisory structure calling for reform at the top. The 16-member Players’ Voice Panel was established by FIFA specifically to monitor and advise on anti-racism initiatives — not to issue leadership critiques.
The identical phrase “Enough is enough!” was simultaneously posted across social media by England’s double European champion Lucy Bronze and France’s 1998 World Cup-winning midfielder Emmanuel Petit, both high-profile current or former players.
Their joint statement asserted that players “share the exact same concerns as the millions of fans around the world” and added: “Like them, we have watched the game we love drift away from its core values under FIFA’s current leadership.”
The statement cited two central grievances: first, that “for too long we’ve seen major decisions taken without players being consulted or considered, and without any regard for the fans who sustain the sport”; second, that “power has blurred the current leadership’s ability to distinguish between its own interests and what is best for football.”
It concluded: “Recent events have made silence impossible. Enough is enough. We call on all stakeholders to step forward and help reshape the future of our sport.”
Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, has formally called on Gianni Infantino to resign following a controversial FIFA proposal to sell stakes in a newly created company tasked with running the World Cup to private investors.
In an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast, Ceferin outlined two paths for Infantino: “One option is that he realises that he doesn’t have the support — not only a political support of the ones who vote, but the political support of football community, the political support of fans, the political support of the players, former players, coaches.”
Ceferin added: “And the second option is that he goes to the elections in March, but in that case, I think he will have a candidate against him. I don’t know yet who.”
Concacaf — the regional confederation representing North America, Central America, and the Caribbean — joined UEFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in opposing Infantino’s private investor proposal.
In an open letter published earlier this month, Concacaf’s presidents described the proposal as a “deception.” Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, who also serves as a FIFA vice-president, has been identified by some commentators as a potential opposition candidate in the upcoming March election.
Infantino was in the Caribbean over the weekend attending a youth football tournament in the Dominican Republic.
