‘Beautiful game’ stained by Trump, Infantino

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has improbably managed to turn the success of the recently completed and profoundly challenged World Cup finals into a defeat.

Just two weeks ago, with confetti from the World Cup final still hanging in the air, Infantino unveiled plans for FIFA Forward Enterprise, a US$20-billion company that would run future FIFA events including the World Cup. The entity would sell a US$4 billion stake to a company called Thrive Eternal, which is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

The nature of the proposal and the people who are involved in it sent shock waves through the global football community. Reverberations so severe, they could knock Infantino from his perch atop the footballing world.

Within the week, the 55 member nations of UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, the 47 members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the 41 nations represented by CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean) rejected Infantino’s proposal. UEFA went the furthest by unanimously threatening to boycott future FIFA events, including the 2030 World Cup to be hosted in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

The shock waves shook the ground inside FIFA, where a senior advisor resigned in protest and FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour claimed staff had been “deceived” about the FFE.

Last Friday, with mutiny erupting across FIFA and its member football nations, Infantino withdrew his proposal. However, that gesture may not save Infantino as he faces a growing chorus of voices demanding he step down.

If he is deposed, it would mark a remarkably quick turnaround in fortunes for Infantino.

Just two weeks earlier, the World Cup finished with Spain winning the championship over Argentina. TV ratings for the tournament shattered previous records, as did profits for FIFA. All told, the football governing body is expected to earn US$12 billion.

It could have turned out much differently.

Grossly expensive tickets, shameless off-loading of costs to taxpayers in host cities, and questionable weather conditions looked as if it would doom the tournament. Add in a grotesque political intrusion by U.S. President Donald Trump — who convinced Infantino to lift a suspension on an American player punished with a red card — and this World Cup could have been an unmitigated disaster.

Fortunately for soccer fans, FIFA and its morally fluid president, the on-field product was glorious, the stadiums were full and the American national team lost the game Trump tried to fix.

However, despite steering the World Cup to the edge of a cliff, Infantino felt the need to steer FIFA towards even shakier moral ground.

Profits from events organized by the Swiss-based, not-for-profit entity are returned to 211 national football federations through “cycle” payments every four years to support football development. Infantino claimed the US$4 billion investment from Thrive Eternal would increase the next cycle payment from an estimated US$20 million to US$40 million.

In the end, the siren call of millions of additional dollars for football development failed to lure the support of football federations, who are turning their attention now to Infantino’s future as head of FIFA.

Under Infantino’s leadership, FIFA has become a quagmire of moral ambiguity. From the tragically hilarious FIFA “peace prize” given to Trump before the World Cup began, to the grotesque ticket prices triggered by FIFA’s ruthless online dynamic pricing model, Infantino has not met an ethical guard rail he wasn’t prepared to drive through.

FIFA’s membership should take stock of all these transgressions and show Infantino a much-deserved red card of his very own, banishing him from the beautiful game he tried to corrupt.