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Gianni Infantino has met his Icarus moment.
The FIFA president’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup was only revealed a matter of days ago but already it seems terminally damaged.
UEFA, the governing body for European football, has threatened a boycott of FIFA competitions by its member nations unless the scheme is permanently abandoned. Concacaf, UEFA’s counterpart in North and Central America and the Caribbean, has also rejected FIFA’s proposal. The Asian Football Confederation has condemned it, too. Even Infantino’s senior adviser, Carlos Cordeiro, has resigned in protest.
In the face of all that, FIFA has expressed its intention to push on with the scheme and take it to a vote, but it’s difficult to see how, given these stances and the extent of the opposition, it can possibly succeed in its current form.
Whatever happens next, whatever the repercussions are for Infantino, this saga will be remembered for its hubris and for being the moment when the FIFA chief, who has consistently been allowed to challenge the boundaries of his authority, finally got too close to the sun.
Among 48 hours of memorable quotes, one of the most pertinent came from Bernd Neuendorf, president of the German Football Association, who revealed that he first learned of Infantino’s plans by reading about them in the media.
“This news has surprised us,” Neuendorf told his country’s football news outlet Kicker on Wednesday. “I’m also a member of the FIFA Council – FIFA’s highest body – and one would expect to be informed in advance about such a significant decision, about such a process. Especially since it’s such a far-reaching project.
“It’s so comprehensive; it must have been discussed within FIFA for months; a year, or even longer. It was never a topic of discussion in the council. I was very surprised, and also annoyed, that we had to find out about something like this from the press.”
The FIFA Council on which Neuendorf sits has 37 members, Infantino included, with representatives from all of the game’s six continental federations. It is, as Neuendorf mentions, world football’s most senior executive body. But there is no evidence yet that it was involved in any of the planning behind FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE), which has reportedly been at a conceptual stage for more than a year.
On Friday morning, FIFA issued a new statement, a third clarification in two days, insisting that a planned “consultation process was disrupted by incorrect media reports”.
It’s not immediately clear which reports it considers incorrect or how it prevented any prior consultation, but those details are incidental. The damage is done. Some of the most influential figures in world football, among them members of FIFA’s highest committee, have been blindsided by a complicated, controversial and divisive piece of legislation because they had no prior warning of its existence.
It’s a staggering oversight.
Powerbrokers tend to come with big egos, to say nothing of their political influence. In a video released late on Tuesday, a worn-looking Infantino, delivering a scripted monologue to camera, attempted to reframe the proposal in response to the media’s reporting. The plan had been misunderstood, he said, in a weary, patronising tone, and is just his attempt to cure football of its inequities.
But if this move was taken in good faith – lower your eyebrows, please – then what was the virtue in keeping it secret? Doing so only risked antagonising members of the international football community and creating suspicion.
The answer seems to be that this is just what the FIFA presidency has been allowed to become. As such, any reflection on this episode must involve proper evaluation of the office itself and the limits of its power. If being FIFA president can convince someone that an initiative this profound can be developed outside of committee and in private, then it must be reformed to guard against such hubris.
And it’s that overreach – the flaunting of consensus – that appears to have Infantino in the kind of political trouble he has so often managed to evade over his decade in the job.
Many of the stakeholders complaining now have tolerated worse. World Cups have been played in Russia and Qatar on Infantino’s watch (even if the awarding of those tournaments to those host nations did not). The hosting procedure for the 2030 and 2034 tournaments was contorted to prevent Saudi Arabia from facing opposition.
Infantino was set to be re-elected as FIFA president in March
Calls for boycotts have been made before, but never has one been threatened in such a serious way, despite the litany of issues that have infringed upon the game.
This has become the line in the sand (perhaps) because it appears to conform to a growing pattern of unilateral behaviour.
One of the frequent refrains from the past few days is that Infantino has been trying to sell something that does not belong to him. Increasingly, he acts as if it does, with this latest affair further evidence that, rather than an administrator, he sees himself more as football’s broker, the owner of its power and the arbiter for what it should be used for.
After U.S. President Donald Trump was awarded FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize last December, no evidence was presented to show that decision went beyond Infantino himself.
When hydration breaks were inserted into each half at the recent World Cup, IFAB, the body which makes the laws of the game, was not consulted. Nor was it given a say when a near 30-minute half-time show was shoved into the tournament’s final.
There are serious points to be made. About Iran, about the abandonment of political neutrality, and that smirking, incredulous press conference Infantino gave ahead of the tournament – the “chill and relax” moment when questions were posed in support of punitive immigration actions.
Then there are more anecdotal issues. The Folarin Balogun affair. The self-celebration of his 10-year anniversary as president. Or, most recently, a raging Instagram post, in which Infantino accused his critics of “spreading hate” and showed his disdain for anything approaching criticism.
This is part of the problem. In its rushed response to this crisis, FIFA has exposed how unprepared it was to explain itself. Within that perhaps lies a more alarming realisation. Maybe there was no planned communication strategy because when Gianni wants something to happen, that tends to be enough.
But not this time. And the sport must never find itself in this position again.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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