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Fresh blow lands at the heart of FIFA and Infantino.

FIFPRO has hit out strongly at FIFA officials, insisting that dropping the World Cup privatisation project does nothing to resolve the crisis. If anything, it lays bare a serious weakness in governance.

In a statement published on its official website, FIFPRO said the U-turn had been unavoidable. However, that does not change the fact that football's global governing body had prepared a plan that would have permanently altered the ownership and governance of the World Cup.

According to the federation, what took place goes beyond a simple governance failure. It amounts to a serious misuse of the powers of the FIFA president.

The statement released after the FIFA meeting in Rabat also came in for criticism. FIFPRO said it sidestepped the core of the crisis, reducing the issue instead to "procedures and means of communication" that needed improvement, even while FIFA acknowledged that mistakes had been made.

FIFA's assertion that everything was done "in accordance with the international federation's regulatory framework" is no defence, the statement continued. It stands as a direct indictment of the current governance system, one that allows projects of this scale to be developed in total secrecy and kept from those affected until they are leaked.

FIFPRO rejects FIFA's warning and demands reform.

FIFPRO also dismissed FIFA's warning that it "will not tolerate any attacks on its integrity", stressing that scrutiny of football governance is not an attack but a responsibility shared by everyone involved in safeguarding the game.

Any internal review whose findings are sent back to the very council that was bypassed in this case cannot be considered a real solution, the body added, while calling for players, their representatives and professional football stakeholders to be included in any future review process.

FIFPRO said the memorandum of understanding signed with FIFA a few weeks earlier had been a positive step. But the crisis surrounding the FFE project had shown that it was not enough to protect players and the game from unilateral decisions.

FIFPRO called for a wide range of reforms. At the top of the list was making the global social dialogue platform a permanent and binding part of FIFA's governance system, and placing FIFA under a legal obligation to consult stakeholders on major decisions such as the international match calendar and tournament expansion.

The body also argued that professional football representatives should be given voting rights within the FIFA Council, with FIFPRO formally recognised as the global representative of players.

The international federation of professional players said it had sent an official letter to FIFA's administration setting out these demands. It was signed by the president of FIFPRO along with the presidents of all its regional federations in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, South America, and Central and North America.