The crisis engulfing Gianni Infantino’s FIFA presidency deepened on Tuesday when Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, the head of Jordan’s football federation and a former FIFA vice-president, publicly accused the organisation of blackmail. In a social media post, Prince Ali claimed that during the recent World Cup he was “verbally communicated” that if he endorsed Infantino for a fourth term, it “would go a long way to helping our FA out”. The Jordanian royal, who ran against Infantino in the 2016 election and has long been a critic, said his federation had been refused help for months until the alleged offer was made.

Prince Ali detailed a series of unresolved disputes, chief among them the non-payment of $4.2 million in prize money due to Jordan for reaching the final of the FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar last December. He also cited visa problems that prevented Jordanian fans from entering the United States despite holding tickets sold at “exorbitant prices”, and complained that the US government, through FIFA, was taxing Jordan’s World Cup earnings while teams based in Canada and Mexico faced no such levies. “We pride ourselves in Jordan in upholding ethical values. We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now,” he wrote, adding that “the whole situation amounts to blackmail, and we refuse to give in to that.”

The accusation lands at a moment of acute vulnerability for Infantino. His plan to sell a 20 per cent stake in a new commercial entity, FIFA Forward Enterprise, to private investors led by Joshua Kushner collapsed last week after fierce opposition from UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation. The proposal, which valued the subsidiary at $20 billion, was withdrawn on 1 August, but not before it triggered a wave of defections: England, Wales, Finland, Serbia and Sweden are among the national federations that have since retracted their support for his re-election. UEFA has threatened boycotts and legal action, and senior FIFA figures including Arsène Wenger and secretary-general Mattias Grafström have distanced themselves from the project.

Prince Ali’s intervention carries symbolic weight. He served on FIFA’s executive committee from 2011 to 2015 and challenged Sepp Blatter for the presidency before finishing third behind Infantino in the 2016 ballot. His latest broadside reinforces the sense that Infantino’s once-commanding majority is eroding. With the presidential election set for 18 March 2027 in Rabat, Morocco, and a 18 November deadline for candidates to declare, the Swiss-Italian is racing to shore up votes among the 211 member associations. FIFA has not yet responded to the blackmail allegation.