• Senior UEFA figures want Wenger to run for FIFA presidency
• Opponents discuss mystery candidate as successor

President Gianni Infantino has apologised to the FIFA Council for his World Cup sell-off plan – but has been told he is not fit to lead unless he releases all of the documents and answers key questions, reports BBC.

The FIFA Council met in Zurich yesterday for the first time since Infantino’s secret FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal emerged.

Under FFE, which Infantino scrapped within days, a portion of the commercial rights of football’s world governing body would have been given to a private investment firm.

In a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, Infantino also faced questions about U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s suspended red-card ban, the FIFA Peace Prize and funding for national associations.

English Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt – a FIFA vice-president – said afterwards that many questions remained unanswered despite the “most robust, most frank, most open Council meeting” she had experienced.

“One of the disappointing things is that we didn’t get answers to anything that we had specifically requested – for example getting the papers from FFE,” Hewitt said.

“I asked the question ‘why not?’ – and we were asked to submit those questions in writing.

“I think the man has to answer those questions and if he doesn’t answer those questions now, he’s not fit to be FIFA president – and that was what was shared in the meeting.”

Hewitt added: “I’ve repeatedly asked for the papers to be shared. I haven’t received them and still in spite of the request today, I haven’t received them.

“It is the rationale for why FFE happened in the way that it did, the Balogun case, the Peace Prize.

“The responses to those questions, which I still don’t have answers to, will determine from my personal point of view whether or not Gianni is the right candidate.

“That will be the point at which or not we can say that any individual that was involved in FFE can or cannot be trusted because until we see what actually happened it’s very difficult to say behaviour needs or not to change.”

Infantino will stand for re-election as FIFA president for a third time in March, and as yet no credible candidate has emerged to challenge the Swiss-Italian.

Former Tottenham and Switzerland defender Ramon Vega has said he intends to run, but it appears unlikely he will get the five letters of support from member associations let alone be a serious contender.

Senior figures within European football have told BBC Sport they want former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger to run. But it is unclear whether Wenger would be prepared to give up his position as FIFA’s global head of football development for a fight against his boss that he may not win.

According to telegraph.co.uk, a mystery late candidate is being discussed by leading power brokers to rival Infantino at next March’s presidential election.

The name is being kept a firm secret to ensure Infantino’s “FIFA machine” is kept guessing as the days countdown to next month’s deadline before the election in March.

The main rival has declared no interest in challenging. Victor Montagliani, the president of Concacaf, the governing body for North and Central American and Caribbean football, had been first choice for many of Infantino’s European opponents, but he is now focusing on being re-elected as leader of his own confederation.

Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the powerful Qatari sporting chief, and long-time Infantino critic Lise Klaveness, the head of the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF), have also ruled out running.

Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian confederation, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, Arsène Wenger, the former Arsenal manager who is now Fifa’s head of football development, and Michele Kang, owner of Lyon, as well as the London City Lionesses and Washington Spirit women’s football teams, have all been thrown into the mix, too.

There is admiration among some for Luís Figo, the former Portugal midfielder, who publicly called for Infantino to resign in August.

But those working behind the scenes to line up the late rival candidate remain tight-lipped about the “unifying” figure they have in mind. “The stakes are too high,” said one source, when asked who the individual was.