In a week where Professor Jason Arday resigned from Cambridge hours after the university opened an investigation into the record it had defended weeks earlier, the Metropolitan Police said it was wrong to have investigated the journalist who questioned that record, the Charity Commission opened a statutory class inquiry into eight charities over how their charitable funds were used, and Gianni Infantino abandoned his World Cup sell-off after UEFA moved to boycott, the question is whether an organisation's second position tells you more about it than its first.
mistakes were made
What do you do when your leader is accused of acting unilaterally, without transparency, and irresponsibly, and half the room does not think that is a problem?
That is the question the FIFA board is holding this week. Gianni Infantino brought forward a plan to sell around a fifth of FIFA's commercial business to private investors, valued at some $20bn, giving the 211 member associations until 19 September 2026 to sign. UEFA's 55 associations voted to boycott every FIFA competition while it stood. Infantino withdrew the plan, apologised in Rabat, and stayed.
Germany's association president said Infantino had acted unilaterally, without transparency, and irresponsibly. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) answered just as plainly: mistakes were made, but the President should not be removed because everything was done in compliance with the regulatory framework.
Germany’s concern lay with how members were treated: told for years the game was run on their behalf, then handed a $20bn sale with a deadline. CAF centred their view on whether rules were kept, sincerely believing that compliant decisions mean they have been taken in a manner befitting of what this governing body owes its members.
This week shows why CAF’s position doesn’t go far enough. Procedure does not protect anyone from doing harm. You can follow every rule in your own book and still lose the confidence of people who trusted you. Rules tell you what you are permitted to do, not what you owe the people affected when you do it. FIFA was permitted to bring the plan forward all the while two hundred-odd associations still feel like their governing body went over their heads.
That is why "mistakes were made" holds the room together. The association that feels dismissed or overlooked hears an admission that vindicates their emotion. The confederation that backed him hears a formality. Three words keep the peace precisely because each half hears what they need in them. However, underneath the phrase, the damage remains. UEFA's lawyers have written to eighteen named executives telling them to preserve every document. The boycott still stands, because UEFA said the apology changed nothing. Each association that signed a letter of support in May is now deciding whether to believe what FIFA tells them next time.
This week FIFA's leadership issued a statement of unity, only for its own senior staff to withhold their names from it, while UEFA and CONCACAF began working to force a no-confidence vote; the President remains in the firing line, the Council is split, the confederations are caught in the crossfire, and it is unclear who inside the building is willing put things right.
Whilst on holiday, I have been writing "things you don't go to therapy for: a field guide to surviving the workplace," a book about what people are left carrying after something at work goes wrong and no one is held to account. "Mistakes were made" features in it. In principle, so could "we've drawn a line under it," and "lessons have been learned." Most boards have their own version. Some care about whether a rule was broken while another is more concerned by the relational implications of a decision. Human nature pushes us to agree on a sentence everyone can live with and move on, knowing full well that conflict does not resolve itself.
Long after decisions are made, boards have differing views of what happened which creates an impasse. Moving beyond that takes someone neutral and independent whose only obligation is to the organisation. If your board is stuck there, we could start with a 30 minute call to see whether it is even relevant to you. [email protected].
The WayFinders Group repairs broken trust at the top of an organisation, before and after it breaks.
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TL;DR what did you say you would do? What did you actually do?
⬆ Up (who hit the mark this week)
The Pensions Regulator set out how it used its anti-avoidance powers against a construction firm that had paid out dividends before liquidation to escape a pension debt of around £250,000, publishing its reasoning rather than only recording the outcome.
⬇ Down (who missed the mark this week)
The Financial Conduct Authority had its bans on two pension transfer advisers upheld by the Upper Tribunal, though the fines were cut from £399,817 to £41,230 and from £270,646 to £16,046 after the tribunal found 18 per cent of the advice was unsuitable rather than the whole of it.
The General Medical Council reported that complaints about doctors rose by a quarter in a year, from 10,769 to 13,465, the largest annual increase in twenty years, with nine in ten closed at triage as below the threshold for investigation.
👁 Watch (who we're watching this week)
The Charity Commission opened a statutory class inquiry into eight charities over how charitable funds were used, sharing information with the police and HMRC, and stating that opening an inquiry is not a finding of wrongdoing.
The Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into Merseycare Transport Services, a Wirral community transport charity, over concerns about misconduct or mismanagement in its administration.
The British Medical Association saw its resident doctors' industrial-action mandate, extended on a 93 per cent yes vote, run to its expiry on 1 August, with any further action requiring a fresh ballot.
The National Audit Office published its financial audit reports on the 2025-26 accounts of several government departments, including Defence, Transport, and the Treasury.
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