The Asian Football Confederation endorsed Gianni Infantino for another term as FIFA president on Friday, reversing a position it took only two months ago when it said he had committed a fundamental breach of trust.

The endorsement came at an extraordinary congress of the confederation in Tokyo. AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa embraced Infantino in front of the membership before telling delegates that the body would support his bid for a fourth term.

"We affirm our full commitment to supporting you and your leadership as you seek a new mandate as the FIFA president," Sheikh Salman said. "You've visited a lot of countries in Asia. I've spoken to a lot of members within this continent. I know your feeling, and I think your commitment is clear as well."

The AFC has 47 member associations, and its members hold a large block of votes in FIFA's 211-member congress. Sheikh Salman signalled that not every member would follow his lead, but said most would. "My feeling is, I'm sure, the feeling of most of my members," he said. "And I've said that to you."

The turn is a sharp one. In August the AFC joined UEFA and CONCACAF, the European and North and Central American confederations, in an open letter that accused Infantino of a "fundamental breach of trust" and called for "leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it". The dispute centred on a now-abandoned plan to raise $4.2 billion by selling a stake in FIFA competitions, including the World Cup, to private investors.

Infantino apologised last week in Zurich to FIFA's 37-member ruling council, which he chairs, for what he described as mistakes in putting that proposal together. The plan has since been scrapped.

Sheikh Salman acknowledged the earlier criticism in his remarks but did not dwell on it. "Gianni, I want to make it clear: yes, we had some issues we spoke about in the past," he said. "But let's not relate the two things together. I think the last few days we met in Zurich, you made it clear that there's a true understanding between us." He added that the past was part of the confederation's history and that lessons had been learned, and that what mattered now was how the two bodies moved forward together.

Infantino, who took the podium afterwards, kept his remarks light but did acknowledge errors. "When you do many things, you do, hopefully, as we did, many good things; you do some mistakes as well," he said. "The important, however, is, as you said, to learn, always from the experience, from the mistakes, to apologise, to move ahead, to come together, to unite."

The loudest applause in the hall, according to accounts of the closed meeting, came when Infantino talked about money flowing to national associations. He said each member federation used to receive $1 million every four years before he took office, and that from 1 January next year the figure would be $25 million.

The FIFA presidential election is due in March. Nominations close on 18 November, and so far no rival candidate has filed against Infantino, who is 56 and is seeking a fourth and final term running to 2031. Africa's confederation has already declared its support. European football's governing body, UEFA, remains opposed, and before the Tokyo meeting there were signs that Infantino was edging towards a simple majority of the 211 federations.

For Asia, the practical effect is that the region's 47 associations, including the Bangladesh Football Federation, are now formally associated with a campaign they had publicly criticised in August. Bangladesh is a member of the AFC and votes through it in FIFA's congress; how individual federations will actually cast their ballots is not public and is not bound by the confederation's position.

Sheikh Salman is also seeking a fourth term as AFC president next year, and Infantino used his own address to praise the Asian official's 13 years in charge and to offer FIFA's support for another term.

Several questions remain open. The first is whether AFC members will follow the endorsement in a secret ballot, since Sheikh Salman himself said he expected most but not all to do so. The second is whether a rival candidate emerges before the 18 November deadline, which would turn a coronation into a contest. The third is whether the governance concerns raised in August have been answered in substance, or only set aside; no published set of conditions or reforms has accompanied the endorsement.

What happens next is largely procedural but consequential. Candidate nominations close in less than four weeks, the FIFA congress votes in March, and the AFC holds its own leadership election next year. Between now and then, Infantino is expected to keep travelling to member associations, a schedule that FIFA's media office has promoted during the campaign and that Sheikh Salman joked on Friday would require a clone to complete.