Davey urges FA and Uefa to quit Fifa over integrity row

Sir Ed Davey has called on the Football Association and Uefa to withdraw from Fifa, accusing Gianni Infantino and the world body's leadership of "destroying the integrity of the beautiful game".

The demand follows a sharp European backlash over Fifa's handling of discipline and governance. In May 2025, eight Uefa members of the Fifa Council and several European delegates walked out of the Fifa congress in Asuncion, Paraguay, after Infantino arrived late from a meeting with Donald Trump. Aleksander Ceferin, the Uefa president, and Debbie Hewitt, the English FA president, left and did not return. Uefa had already declared that Fifa had crossed a "red line" and warned that the integrity of the game was at stake.

Under FIFA statutes, a member association may resign from Fifa with effect from the end of a calendar year, and FIFA's legal framework gives its Congress, Council and secretary general power over rules that shape football worldwide. For the Football Association, which sits inside that system as England's national governing body, withdrawal would mean giving up a vote in the institutions that govern World Cup access, international discipline and the calendar that Premier League clubs already operate within.

Premier League clubs are independent, but they work within the rules of the Premier League, the FA, Uefa and Fifa, and England's place in those structures underpins access to domestic, European and international competition. A break with Fifa would weaken England's leverage inside world football, while a break with Uefa would raise even bigger questions around Champions League participation and the wider European club game.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted nine Fifa officials and five corporate executives on racketeering conspiracy and corruption charges.