Premier League CEO Richard Masters called for a new presidential candidate to lead reform in governance in the wake of the controversy surrounding Gianni Infantino’s position as FIFA’s chief.
This comes after Masters said Infantino had pressed the ‘self-destruct button’ after abandoning his plan to sell a stake in the commercial rights of the FIFA World Cup. The Premier League CEO said that a new leader needs to emerge with a proposal to unite the game’s confederations.
“I think that what obviously needs to happen now is another candidate needs to emerge within the deadline (ahead of the March 18 election) with a new offer, a different offer that can hopefully unify the confederations,” Masters told reporters ahead of the Premier League’s opening fixtures this weekend.
“And I do think that part of that offer should be to look at reform, governance reform.”
“That’s not to say that people from Europe should dictate other parts of the world about what should be reformed and how things should be decided,” he said.
“But it’d be right, at this juncture, given what’s happened, to look at those governance structures and also the role of the president and what power that president actually has, even if that person is coming in to reform their own sort of job description.”
Masters underlined that the Premier League had never entertained private equity entering governance, even during the serious financial uncertainties the COVID-19 pandemic created.
“Even during COVID, when people had a big problem in front of them, we didn’t go near looking at a solution like that,” Masters said.
“The Premier League model works extremely well. We’re very successful in the media rights business, we’ve got a fantastic market share. There’s no necessity for us to look at an outside investment in that sense.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
Published on Aug 20, 2026
