Infantino trades status for White House access

Opinion

Earlier this week, reporters at Politico were shown a letter sent by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to FIFA president Gianni Infantino. In it, director of global initiatives Minky Worden expressed the organization’s “grave concerns” about next year’s World Cup, which the United States will co-host along with Mexico and Canada.

Citing the extralegal border detentions, anti-LGBTTQ+ discrimination and “chilling” clampdowns on freedom of speech that are the daily reality of the second Trump administration, HRW called on FIFA to use its leverage in effecting changes to U.S. policy.

If doing so proved impossible, the letter concluded, FIFA should “reconsider the hosting decision.”

It’s unlikely the envelope was even opened.

The same day the letter’s contents were reported, Infantino was sitting in an opulent Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, meeting room alongside U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and senior presidential adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

He used his speaking time to repeat his favourite buzzwords and phrases: unity, transformation, “global football GDP.” In what was ostensibly an investment forum, he was a side act to the main show. At the event’s conclusion, the United States and Saudi Arabia announced a weapons deal worth US$142 billion, the largest ever between the two countries.

He was also in his comfort zone.

Like Musk, Infantino is part of an unelected, unvetted segment of the Trump cabinet. He enjoys proximity to power, and the power he seems to prefer is that of autocrats, oligarchs and hangers-on whose collective worldview was formed in the racial panic of the late 19th century.

In what he surely accepted as a happy coincidence, the 75th FIFA Congress opened in Paraguay while he glad-handed in the Gulf. After all, who has time for actual football discussions when one can cozy up to journalist-killers, proponents of anti-white racism in South Africa, and a U.S. President whose private army of brownshirts is rounding up undesirables back home?

When he eventually did show up, the European representatives walked out in protest.

At some point, world football will have to wake up to the fact that Infantino has essentially traded the FIFA presidency for access to the White House. In at least the near term, this means the governing body of the world’s most popular sport — mandated to invest in global grassroots football projects and, yes, organize tournaments for men and women of all age levels — is in actuality a file on the Resolute desk.

Given the transactional nature of this administration, it follows that FIFA’s raison d’etre has devolved into a money-spinning enterprise on ideological lines, not unlike Musk’s businesses or those of the other cronies who clinked glasses on Air Force One en route to the Middle East.

The Club World Cup, that hugely unpopular Infantino brainchild set to start next month in the United States, is perhaps the most jarringly decadent project in FIFA history.

With schedules already packed, the clubs don’t want it; with fixture congestion making injuries likely, the players don’t want it, either. And, if the host city billboards advertising tickets is any indication, the fans have no idea what it is or simply have better things to do with their time.

In short, this event need not exist. Nobody wanted it outside Infantino and, not surprisingly, the Saudis. It’s not like the FIFA boss went to Riyadh on a joyride.

Thirteen months ago, Aramco (officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company) became FIFA’s highest-paying sponsor when it signed a deal worth US$400 million. In December, the Kingdom was confirmed as uncontested host of the 2034 World Cup.

Around the same time, the streaming service DAZN stepped up to acquire the Club World Cup’s broadcast rights, which no other outlet seemed willing to touch. Already bleeding money, it somehow paid US$1 billion for the privilege and agreed to show the games, worldwide, for free.

It had no way to actually pay for the rights, but then it was never going to. In February, Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund (PIF), which also has stake in Aramco, bought a minority share in DAZN for, yes, US$1 billion.

(As they’ve grown used to doing, since no one else has the courage, it was the women footballers who called out FIFA for its Aramco partnership.)

In other words, Aramco and the PIF are not only underwriting their own World Cup nine years from now, but the 2026 competition and the upcoming Club World Cup as well.

Even so, in no way should they be cast as sole villains in this nauseating drama. Infantino gave them a product to buy, and they bought it. But with FIFA now tucked into the Trump administration, they also needed American sign-off. They got that, too.

At this point, it’s hardly worth mentioning that FIFA is a registered not-for-profit organization. That operational camouflage has long worn off. It can now be seen for what it is: a vehicle of power for sale to the highest bidder, basic human rights be damned.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

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