FIFA chief Infantino gets backing of South American football

FIFA president Gianni Infantino on Friday received support from several leading South American football figures as he visited Colombia amidst the crisis engulfing world football's governing body.

Infantino arrived early on Friday in the Colombian city of Cali to attend hard-right president Abelardo de la Espriella's inauguration.

Photos released by the Colombian Football Federation show a smiling Infantino standing alongside South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) president Alejandro Dominguez and the president of the Colombian federation, Ramon Jesurun.

The visit to Colombia comes as the head of world football has been embroiled in a storm following a much-criticised and ultimately abandoned plan to open the World Cup to private investment.

The 56-year-old Italian-Swiss lawyer, who has been in office since 2016, declined to answer a question from an AFP journalist about whether he considered FIFA's woes to be over.

Later, while attending a children's soccer festival at a sports complex in Cali, he spoke of his "happiness" at being at the event.

"It is a joy to be here today," the FIFA boss told dozens of children kitted out in football gear at an event in the southwestern city.

"Football is joy, football is happiness, football is unity," he said, adding that "so many champions" were born "in this part of the world, in this part of Colombia."

Infantino, who will seek a fourth and final term in the presidential election in Rabat next March, is facing criticism, notably from European body UEFA, which on Thursday maintained its threat to boycott the World Cup despite FIFA's withdrawal of the private investment proposal.

CONMEBOL, which has only 10 FIFA-affiliated members but includes iconic federations such as Argentina and Brazil, had on Thursday expressed its "concern regarding the repeated unilateral actions taken" by FIFA.

However, when asked by a Colombian media outlet on Friday, the CONMEBOL president stated that "one cannot ignore the great work" done by Infantino.

"We must continue working for football through dialogue; it is not necessary to always agree," Dominguez added.

Following the powerful Argentine Football Association (AFA) and the Paraguayan federation on Thursday, Infantino also received support on Friday from two other South American federations -- Venezuela and Ecuador.

In line with their confederation's statement, they welcomed the withdrawal of the controversial plan to create a commercial entity open to private investors known as the FIFA Forward Enterprise.

In a letter to the FIFA chief, Ecuadorian federation president Francisco Egas Larreategui added that he had confidence in Infantino "as well as in those currently leading football to continue working for the good of our sport".

Close to figures on the right of politics, such as US President Donald Trump, Infantino attended De la Espriella's presidential inauguration ceremony later on Friday.

Colombia's incoming leader has broken with tradition by choosing to hold the ceremony in Cali, considered the capital of salsa, rather than before Congress in Bogota.