Fifa's special operation? Putin-fantino has no limits in his football villainy
William Mata wonders if Sepp Blatter was just the starter in Fifa's bottomless bucket of shame
If Donald Trump gets his way, Gianni Infantino, his mate and rival for the title of the world’s most out-of-touch football watcher, would succeed António Guterres as Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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It’s, thankfully, an unlikely prospect. The UN operates its votes with a great deal less, reported, corruption than Fifa, and Trump’s suggestion will probably be vetoed.
Infantino, however, is capable of causing enough destruction where he is. And his empire building, which has stepped up this week with Fifa’s Forward Enterprise scheme, seems straight out of his friend’s playbook.
Once upon a time, the idea of Trump becoming president was laughable. And this was followed by suggestions that his most outlandish ideas (building a wall with Mexico, separating migrant children from their parents, pulling out of the Paris climate accord etc) would never come to pass because of the apparent limitations of the presidency.
People are no longer suggesting that Trump couldn’t single-handedly drag the world down, and the idea of a limitation of power, that someone, an adult, might step in, and say “that’s enough, now” feels like pre-2016 nostalgia.
In the same way, there was a time that the average football fan greeted the election of Gianni Infantino in 2016 (what a year that was…) with a sense of relief, that surely nobody could be worse than Sepp Blatter. But the ex Fifa boss, the embodiment of corruption, is now like a villain defeated in a previous film - whose place has been taken by someone even more evil. Infantino replacing Blatter is like discovering in a Star Wars sequel that Darth Vader was, all the while, only in front of The Emperor.
Like Trump, Infantino appears determined to prove to the naysayers that there are no limitations to their abilities to spring outrage and anger. In his audition to be UN secretary-general, the Swiss has expanded the World Cup beyond recognition, introduced hated hydration breaks, caved to the US president’s request for an American player to have a suspension rescinded, and awarded the 2034 tournament to Saudi Arabia.
But Infantino was only getting started. He has now announced proposals to sell off part of Fifa to private investors, a proposition which could raise billions - and yet remove the heart and soul of the game. To do this, beyond his mandatory 2031 term end, Infantino would be able to continue his influence by establishing a company to control these business interests and, in essence, get paid rather a lot. It feels Machiavellian beyond Trump’s capabilities, and comparable with Vladimir Putin finding ways to dominate the Kremlin for 26-plus years. If Fifa Forward Enterprise goes ahead, then what next? A special military operation to invade Uefa, and other dissenters?
You know things have become bad when even Sepp Blatter has raised concerns. But Infantino likely won’t care, nor about Andy Burnham when the British PM said “the World Cup is not a product,” and that “football belongs to the fans and not the investors”.
Like Trump, Infantino is pressing on undeterred, showing that no amount of public opinion, precedent, or apparent limitations of their office’s power can quell an ambition - especially when it involves making money.
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William Mata is a writer for LBC.
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