For two weeks the paperwork of the Fifa crisis moved in one direction. Associations withdrew letters of support, confederations issued statements of censure, and on Monday the three bodies governing football in Europe, in North and Central America and the Caribbean, and in Asia signed a joint open letter describing his plan as a "fundamental breach of trust" and as "deception". On Thursday six federation presidents put their names to a single letter pointing the other way.
They were the heads of the Moroccan, Qatari, Egyptian, Mauritanian, Lebanese and Sudanese associations. "We, the undersigned leaders of our respective football associations, express our full support for Mr. Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, and reaffirm our confidence in his leadership and continued commitment to the development of football worldwide," it read. Four of the six sit on the Fifa council: the presidents of the Qatari, Egyptian, Moroccan and Mauritanian federations. Letters of support from individual federations have appeared before, several of them posted on Infantino's own social media account. This one was collective, and it was signed.
The significance is not the warmth of the language, which is the standard register of these things. It is the addresses. Qatar and Lebanon are members of the Asian Football Confederation, which had put its name to the letter calling his plan a deception three days earlier. Their federations have now aligned against their own confederation's position, in public, over their presidents' names.
The bloc is not the ballot