• Infantino failed to provide answers to questions

• European leaders expect someone will stand against him

European football leaders are increasingly confident they will find a candidate to stand against Gianni Infantino in next year’s Fifa presidential election, with the heads of the English and German football associations questioning his fitness to govern after a three-and-a-half-hour council meeting.

Infantino began the long-awaited gathering of Fifa’s 37-strong executive board by apologising for failing to consult them over his abandoned World Cup sell-off plan but failed to provide answers to dozens of questions posed by the European FAs on a range of subjects including the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, Donald Trump’s Fifa peace prize and the Folarin Balogun affair, when the USA striker’s World Cup suspension was overturned after lobbying from the US president.