Infantino’s FIFA tenure – the good, the bad and the ugly
Gianni Infantino, barring cataclysm
(not to be ruled out these days), is
expecting to be re-elected next year
as president of FIFA for a further four
years. The jury is out on the balance
of his reign thus far.
The 52-year-old Swiss lawyer was
voted in six years ago to complete
the last three years of Sepp Blatter’s
fifth term, and then won the top job in
world football in his own right in 2019.
Under the current rules – which
he could always seek to rewrite – a
president may serve “only” three full
terms. This means that Infantino may
seek a further re-election in 2027,
preside over the 2030 World Cup and
then retire to the luxury of five-star
travel, accommodation and VIP
seating for the rest of his life.
That would add up to a total of
15 years in office, inferior only to the
World Cup’s founding fatherJules
Rimet (33), Brazilian autocratJoao
Havelange (24) and the banned
and disgraced Blatter (17).
Europe, having enthusiastically
voted Infantino into office in 2016,
would now happily ditch him without
a moment’s hesitation. The reason is
simple: Infantino, like all but one of
FIFA’s previous eight presidents, may
be European but his authority and job
security depends on the world outside.
The bitter irony for UEFA is that its
powerbrokers were happy to raise uptheir own general secretary then
furious when he failed to display due
gratitude in serving their own needs
out of FIFA’s granite-and-glass HQ
across the road from Zurich Zoo.
Bear in mind that the richest
of FIFA’s members are only a
small minority of the 211-strong
membership. The majority middle-
class and minnow nations are satisfied
with Infantino. They love the way he
quadrupled development largesse(OK, so tighter controls demand
more creative accounting), love his
expansion of the World Cup to
48 teams and love his dream
of staging it every two years.
If you lead the impoverished FA
of Cuba or Botswana or Cambodia or
Tahiti and dozens more then what is
not to like? This is all lost on Europe
and on a highly-critical Eurocentric
western media. But not on a majorityof the FAs who each hold one vote
in FIFA Congress.
Women’s football is the one sphere
in which Infantino has proceeded
without demur. His most significant
step has been to establish the
financial independence of the
Women’s World Cup.
Until now the Women’s World
Cup was merely one of the dozen
additional bits and pieces which
were “bundled up” for all FIFA’sTHEWORLD THIS MONTH
THE INSIDER
Keir
RADNEDGE
multinational (men’s) World Cup
sponsors. No longer. The Women’s
World Cup now commands its own
sponsorship slots which, already,
permit a doubling of prize money.
One day this may be viewed
among the most notable achievements
of a reign which began in Zurich back in
February 2016 when Infantino defeated
Asian confederation president Sheikh
Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa115 votes
to 88 in a run-off. The first ballot had
seen off Prince Ali ofJordan, Frenchman
Jerome Champagne and South Africa’s
Tokyo Sexwale.
Infantino’s rise was remarkable.
Blatter quit in summer 2015 after
the United StatesJustice Department
laid bare how a greedy bunch of bosses
on the FIFA executive committee
had feasted financially on World
Cup contracts.
Michel Platini, then president of
UEFA, was favourite for the job he
had always coveted. However Platini
was then suspended by FIFA after
details emerged of Blatter’s payment
to him of $2m for work undertaken
within FIFA years earlier.Under the
spotlight...FIFA
president Gianni
Infantino in Qatar
for the 2021
Arab CupEurope, having enthusiastically voted Infantino
into office in 2016, would now happily ditch
him without a moment’s hesitation