High-profile current and former footballers – including a member of a FIFA player panel – say “change is necessary” in the organisation’s leadership as pressure continues to mount on its president Gianni Infantino.

Mikael Silvestre, the former Manchester United defender and part of FIFA’s Players’ Voice Panel, issued a statement calling for change at the top of FIFA on his X account on Monday and wrote above it: “Enough is enough!”

The same statement was also shared on social media by other big-name players, including England’s double European champion Lucy Bronze and France’s 1998 World Cup-winning midfielder Emmanuel Petit.

Infantino is facing calls to quit from his UEFA counterpart Aleksander Ceferin in the wake of a hugely controversial plan to sell stakes in a company to run the World Cup to private investors.

Players have now begun adding their voice to the debate. The widely-shared statement said players “share the exact same concerns as the millions of fans around the world”.

It added: “Like them, we have watched the game we love drift away from its core values under FIFA’s current leadership.

“For too long we’ve seen major decisions taken without players being consulted or considered, and without any regard for the fans who sustain the sport.

“Change is necessary. Power has blurred the current leadership’s ability to distinguish between its own interests and what is best for football.”

Silvestre’s interjection is significant given it effectively comes from within the FIFA fold, with the Players’ Voice Panel a 16-strong group formed by the global governing body to monitor and advise on initiatives to tackle racism.

The statement continued: “Recent events have made silence impossible. Enough is enough.

“We call on all stakeholders to step forward and help reshape the future of our sport.”

But former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o, who is now president of the country’s football federation, had words of support for Infantino.

“I don’t think that president Gianni Infantino has done anything wrong,” Eto’o said in an interview with CNN Sports.

“I think the timing of all of that is because there’s an election coming out, when Gianni Infantino is standing. All of this has happened because there’s an election coming out, that’s all there is.”

UEFA president Ceferin has ruled himself out of standing against Infantino for the FIFA top job, but said in an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast that the Swiss has two options.

“One option is that he realises that he doesn’t have the support, and that’s not only a political support of the ones who vote, but the political support of football community, the political support of fans, the political support of the players, former players, coaches.

“And the second option that he goes to to the elections in March, but in that case, I think he will have a candidate against him. I don’t know yet who.”

The current president of CONCACAF, Victor Montagliani, has been mentioned by some observers as a potential rival candidate. CONCACAF is the continental confederation representing countries from North and Central America plus the Caribbean. Montagliani is also a FIFA vice-president.

CONCACAF joined UEFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in rejecting Infantino’s private investor plan, with its presidents describing it as a “deception” in an open letter published earlier this month.

Infantino was in the Caribbean at the weekend, attending a youth football tournament in the Dominican Republic.