GENEVA, Switzerland — Gianni Infantino defied a request by one of his FIFA vice presidents to stay away from an Under-14 soccer event in the Caribbean and instead made a rare public appearance during the global furor over his failed plan to sell future World Cup profits to private investors.
On Saturday, Infantino posted photos on his Instagram account showing the FIFA president meeting political and soccer officials from the Dominican Republic on the sidelines of a Caribbean Football Union (CFU) youth tournament in the Punta Cana resort.
On Friday, Infantino had been asked not to go by Victor Montagliani, the Canadian president of Miami-based continental soccer body Concacaf, to avoid being a distraction from the soccer games.
"I believe that considering the governance crisis surrounding FIFA as a result of your controversial FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, the media will focus on this situation," Montagliani wrote in an emailed letter seen by The Associated Press (AP), "which will unfortunately significantly take away from the technical nature of the CFU youth competition."
"As such, I respectfully ask you in the name of football to reconsider your attendance as it will unfortunately undermine the technical nature of this important youth development activity," Montagliani wrote.
FIFA declined to comment on the Montagliani request, though noted it directly funds regional bodies like the CFU with up to $5 million from each four-year World Cup cycle.
Montagliani has aligned with fellow FIFA vice presidents Aleksander Ceferin from European body UEFA and Asian Football Confederation president Sheik Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa in seeking to end Infantino's increasingly executive presidency now in its 11th year.
They accused Infantino two weeks ago of "deception" in secretly planning over the past year to spin off FIFA's multi-billion dollar commercial activities to a subsidiary 20 percent owned by investors led by Joshua Kushner.
