ZURICH (AP) — Gianni Infantino is about to finally sit around the table with his biggest critics who want to oust him as FIFA president.
Infantino will on Thursday chair the first session of the 37-member FIFA Council since his secretive and divisive World Cup sell-off plan was revealed — and dropped within days — 11 weeks ago.
The confrontation with his most determined opponents from Europe and North America comes ahead of a Nov. 18 deadline for candidates to enter FIFA's presidential election, which will be held four months later in Rabat, Morocco.
It is the biggest crisis of Infantino’s near 11-year presidency. He was cruising toward a fourth and final term through 2031 when the World Cup final was played July 19 near New York. The private investor plan was revealed nine days later.
Deep into an untypically long agenda, a four-part section promises to be fiercely debated in the basement meeting room at FIFA’s slate and glass headquarters next to Zurich’s zoo.
The four items to be reviewed: Infantino’s quickly withdrawn proposal to sell a permanent stake in tournament rights to private investors led by Joshua Kushner, paying FIFA's 211 member federations from its $5-6 billion reserves, FIFA disciplinary procedures and its governance standards.
FIFA didn't immediately reply to a request for comment about the planned scope and goals of the discussion.
At the core of all four subjects is Infantino’s increasingly executive, one-man leadership style that led his own — and now departed — chief operating officer Kevin Lamour to call the intended FIFA Forward Enterprise spinoff “the project of one person.”
However, it is unclear if most of the 211 federations want to vote out a president who has sent them multiple more millions of dollars from FIFA, a not-for-profit under Swiss law that they effectively own.
FIFA presidential elections have since 2007 been scheduled in the year after a men's World Cup.
The timing allows sitting presidents to steer a bonus from World Cup revenues, which in Sepp Blatter's time was $250,000, during the official election period. For the 2027 FIFA election, the official period started in April this year at the Congress held in Vancouver.
At the council on Thursday, Infantino is expected to propose the 211 members each get $15 million extra in the 2027-2030 commercial cycle, on top of their $10 million already promised.
That offer appears to counter UEFA and allies proposing last month that FIFA could afford to give each member a one-off $10 million payment from cash reserves. The UEFA-backed offer was in the context of suggesting FIFA had no need to raise $4.2 billion from private investors in exchange for a 20% permanent stake in the FFE subsidiary that would run commercial rights to all World Cups and Club World Cups.
That $4.2 billion would have funded Infantino's offer in July of $20 million to each member federation who approved the sell-off plan by a mid-September deadline.
UEFA filed court applications in the U.S. in August seeking authorization of evidence discovery from FIFA and Kushner's investment firm for a possible criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland. UEFA lawyers claim the $4.2 billion could be a “fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit.”
FIFA asked U.S. courts to reject the discovery requests, and accused UEFA of running a “ smear campaign. ”
How and why a peace prize was created by Infantino and given to U.S. President Donald Trump at the World Cup draw last December in Washington, D.C. is part of formal complaints by the Norwegian soccer federation to FIFA's ethics and governance officials.
It is also an additional item on Thursday's agenda, which German media reported was at the request of FIFA Council member and German Football Association President Bernd Neuendorf.
Infantino's ties to Trump, and potential conflicts of interest, also fueled scrutiny on FIFA disciplinary decisions for the World Cup that allowed Portugal superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and U.S. forward Folarin Balogun to keep playing after being shown red cards.
A third case revealed in media reports last week also raised questions about how Congo — whose soccer federation has close ties to Infantino — was not disciplined despite goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi being ineligible for four qualifying games he played in.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
FILE - UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, right, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, left, holding a ball during the 49th UEFA congress in Belgrade, Serbia, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Social Security Administration projected Wednesday that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for older adults and people with disabilities will go up by 3.6% beginning in 2027, with some recipients complaining that is not enough to offset soaring prices.
The adjustment translates to $75 extra per month for the nearly 72 million people who receive monthly Social Security benefits and about 7.3 million beneficiaries who get Supplemental Security Income.
The announcement comes as inflation adds pressure on household budgets and businesses and as midterm elections are weeks away.
The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for retirees and disabled beneficiaries is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers, up to a certain annual salary. That is set to increase to $192,300 in 2027, from $184,500 in 2026.
The agency's commissioner, Frank Bisignano, said in a statement that the adjustment will give recipients “greater financial stability.”
Some older adults feel the increase is a drop in the bucket as inflation has eaten away at monthly savings. The government reported last month that inflation accelerated in August as gas prices spiked in the wake of renewed fighting between the United States and Iran.
Lorrie Ufkin, a 71-year-old retiree who lives outside Rochester, Minnesota, said the COLA will not put a dent in her healthcare costs, which are set to increase after the Trump administration concludes at year's end a temporary Medicare Part D subsidy program that has helped offset premiums. Ufkin said that her premiums and drug cost are expected to rise, although the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has projected a modest increase for most people.
The COLA “doesn’t even meet what they’re going to do for changes to Medicare,” she told The Associated Press.
She said one of the medications both she and her husband take will go from $11 per month for each prescription, to $200 per month, after Republican administration changes made to older Americans' healthcare programs. She said that was “catastrophic.”
Senior advocacy groups say the COLA is a strong reminder of the financial straits of many older people.
“There’s a lot on the line financially right now for older Americans — one in five have no retirement savings, and more people feel financially insecure this year than last. That makes Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment critically important,” said AARP CEO Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan.
Jaime Jakubczak, a 68-year-old resident of Buffalo, New York who retired early at 55, has recently gone back to work to make ends meet, specifically to afford rising property taxes. He said the COLA is insufficient because it is offset by high inflation and a proposed 3.9% property tax increase in his town.
Jakubczak called the 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment “a pittance," given how high food, healthcare and gasoline prices have become across the country.
“We were getting ahead a little bit with the COLA based on inflation, but the inflation is so high that it doesn’t offset what our COLA allowance is," he said.
Most older adults believe the COLA isn’t adequately keeping up with inflation, according to an AARP poll from September. That poll found that about three-quarters of those 50 or older disagreed with the idea that a 3.5% COLA in 2027 would be enough to keep up with rising prices.
The Social Security Administration faces a looming bankruptcy date if a funding shortfall is not addressed by Congress.
The June 2026 Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report states that Social Security’s combined trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.
While a permanent solution for shoring up the benefits program has not been passed into law, lawmakers on the Hill have called for new measures to replenish the trust funds.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, in June proposed lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap, which is a maximum amount of earnings taxable. Treating all income the same "would generate substantial revenue that would extend the solvency of Social Security for another generation,” they wrote in The New York Times.
The move is controversial because Republicans have traditionally criticized calls to raise taxes on the wealthy.
The Peterson Foundation estimates that lifting the payroll tax cap would add roughly $3 trillion into the program over the next 10 years.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations signed into law new benefits for retirees, which boosted their finances, but simultaneously accelerated the insolvency of the old-age benefits program.
The Trump administration, as part of Republicans’ tax and spending bill, gave a temporary tax deduction for people 65 and over, which applies to all income — not just Social Security. But those who aren't able to claim the deduction include the lowest-income older adults who already don’t pay taxes on Social Security, those who choose to claim their benefits before they reach 65 and those above a defined income threshold.
Additionally, Democratic President Joe Biden in 2024 repealed two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that previously limited Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people, including largely former public workers.
FILE - The Social Security Administration office is seen in Mount Prospect, Ill., Oct. 12, 2022.(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
