Is Luís Figo preparing the ground for a bid at the FIFA presidency? | OneFootball

Gianni Infantino and Luís Figo at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. (Photo: Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)

In 2015 Portuguese football legend Luís Figo made a surprise announcement that he would be running against incumbent Sepp Blatter and several other candidates to become president of FIFA, football’s world governing body.

“Football has given me so much during my life and I want to give something back to the game,” said Figo, 42 at the time.

Using arguments that continue to resonate today, the former Barcelona and Real Madrid superstar added: “I look at the reputation of FIFA right now and I don’t like it. Football deserves better. In recent weeks, months, and even years, I have seen the image of FIFA deteriorate.”

Figo would go on to withdraw his candidacy a few months later, launching a scathing attack on the FIFA presidential election process, saying he had, “witnessed consecutive incidents, all over the world, that should shame anyone who desires soccer to be free, clean and democratic.”

A decade later Figo, who played 127 times for Portugal, won the Ballon d’Or in 2000 and was voted FIFA World Player of the Year in 2001, has again voiced strong opinions about the highest hierarchical level of the FIFA organisation.

In a column published in today’s edition of UK newspaper The Daily Mail, Figo was pulling no punches in relation to Gianni Infantino’s unsuitability to continue as the head of the body.

“Infantino must go” - Figo

“I could write 10,000 words on the problems at FIFA. But the solution needs only three: Infantino must go,” began Figo.

He went on to detail what he describes as “the lowest, most deceitful and cravenly self-interested behaviour I have ever witnessed,” and “the litany of abuses he has inflicted on football’s reputation,” ending the piece by opining: “It is too late to save his dignity but it is not too late to save football. He should go. Now.”

Since hanging up his boots in 2009 Figo has focused on a wide range of business ventures and charity work.

He has been linked with a return to football in top-management roles, with sporadic rumours appearing in the Portuguese press that he could run for president of his first club Sporting CP or the Portuguese Football Federation, neither of which came to pass.

With mounting pressure on FIFA president Gianni Infantino to resign in the wake of his failed attempt to sell off part of the World Cup to private investors, on the back of a series of other scandals, Figo could be a viable candidate for the job should Infantino fall.