Why FIFA president Gianni Infantino is far scarier than Sepp Blatter ever was
On May 28, just two weeks before the devil’s spawn that is this Club World Cup, Gianni Infantino took to Instagram to post a video.
He is wearing a black CWC-branded Adidas tracksuit that a 55-year-old frankly should not be wearing; it makes him look like a minor character in The Sopranos.
In his hand, he is holding a Panini sticker book made for this year’s tournament. Over the next couple of minutes, Infantino tells the viewers of the “amazing collection” featuring players such as “Leo Messi of Inter Miami, Erling Haaland of Manchester City and Harry Kane of Bayern Munich”. All the greats. Apart from all these players.
While the presenters of QVC need not fear for their jobs, the telling aspect of this shameless sales pitch comes at the very end when Infantino holds up a single sticker, the crown jewel of his collection. Messi? Haaland? Kane? Oh no.
Above the words ‘The Emblem’ on a gold background, there’s Infantino. Wielding double thumbs up with that slightly sinister smile.
Whether it was Infantino’s idea himself or that of a FIFA minion, it does not really matter. The very fact that Infantino, a middle-aged man, not only liked the idea of having his own face on a sticker but gave it the green light, reveals almost all we need to know about the man.
When FBI agents raided the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich in 2015, many thought the House of FIFA had finally crumbled. The era of Sepp Blatter, and Joao Havelange before him, turning the people’s game into a money-making machine, was at an end. The gig was up. Public perception had long since turned on them but the involvement of US law enforcement hit FIFA and Blatter where it hurt – the sponsors.
McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Visa and Budweiser all withdrew their support and called for Blatter’s resignation. As all-powerful figures tend to do, Blatter fought tooth and nail to hold onto his power. A few months earlier, he had begun to go back on his own promise that he would step down, but this was the much-needed crippling blow. The 79-year-old, who suddenly looked every one of those 79 years, departed the FIFA bunker – Michel Platini, his friend turned enemy, heading out the door with him – and into a life of disgrace.
The atom bomb that had dropped on FIFA in 2015 left a blank canvas for what came next, but the hope that football’s governing body would clean up its act has proved to be fanciful.
In the void created by Blatter’s departure stepped Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino. While the name was not a familiar one to the casual fan, his face at least was. He joined UEFA in 2000, rising up the ranks until he was front and centre of Champions League draws.
Nobody could have predicted that this man would soon be the most powerful person in world football. He assumed the presidency in February 2016, winning by 27 votes. Of course, Infantino then compared his efforts to win the presidency to Rwanda’s recovery from genocide. We should have known.
Since that day, Infantino’s influence on FIFA has been arguably just as impactful as Blatter’s. But the key difference is the subtlety of their actions. Blatter, throughout his tenure, loved being front and centre, speaking to anyone and everyone; Infantino has been much more selective with his audiences.
Blatter cosied up to the African nations, knowing that they as a collective, they had a huge say in FIFA matters. Infantino has cosied up to world leaders, knowing their influence reaches far beyond football. For the opening match of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Infantino watched with Vladimir Putin on one side and Mohammed bin Salman on the other.
Infantino has been operating largely out of the wider public eye, but the revamped Club World Cup tournament has been the perfect stage to announce Gianni to the world.
The first warning sign came in November with the unveiling of the trophy for the summer tournament; it was quickly pointed out that Infantino stuck his own name on there. Twice.
Infantino took his big shiny dinner plate to the White House, presenting it to Donald Trump in the Oval Office before acting like a kid showing their school project to their parents by placing a key (he owns the only copy) into the back that allows the trophy, supposedly inspired by NASA, to spin.
It was a nauseating affair and hard to think of anything further from the muddy pitches and terraces that represent football to so many.
If Infantino’s cosying up to leaders of the Eastern world was unnerving, it is his ‘friendship’ with Trump that is even more unsettling. Football is a sport that can proudly boast an incredibly diverse participation record. People from pretty much every country on the planet have played the sport. Straight, gay, queer, trans, black, white, whatever – people from every background have kicked a ball around or fallen in love with the game.
Trump represents the very opposite of that inclusivity. In the week leading up to the CWC kick-off, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, flanked by the military, descended on Los Angeles. As teams play at LA’s Rose Bowl, lampposts outside have missing persons papers stapled to them, asking where relatives ‘abducted by ICE’ have gone.
But what did Infantino have to say about all this? What did the president of FIFA say? The face of the global game? The biggest cheerleader of the tournament? Well we will never know for he has ducked journalists like Messi dropping his shoulder to lose a defender.
Since his “today I feel gay” speech preceding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Infantino has made no time for journalists. Instead, the man given the lucrative proposition of time one-on-one with his excellency was IShowSpeed, a YouTuber with a Ronaldo obsession who is well-known for running very fast and barking like a dog.
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You could be forgiven for thinking that the awarding of the World Cup to a country with an appalling human rights record where it is too hot to play football in the summer was the lowest FIFA could sink, but Infantino’s FIFA threatens to be something much worse.
Blatter, for all his faults, took the World Cup to Africa for the first time; Havelange made the sport much more global after the isolationist approach of Stanley Rous. Infantino, meanwhile, has got into bed with the Saudis and Trump – doing it all with a smile on his face and without journalists with their pesky questions.
The dream of having a FIFA president who genuinely cares about the good of the game more than the power they can wield is no longer based in reality. The genie is out of the bottle. If Blatter’s misdoings were blatant, Infantino’s behind-closed-doors approach threatens to take football down darker paths than it has ever been before.
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