Gianni Infantino remains president of FIFA for now, organising crisis meetings in Rabat as he looks to re-affirm his slipping grip on power following a fortnight of self-destruction that has lacked only a killer blow.
Infantino’s standing in world football has fallen in a rhythm often seen in the lead-up to catastrophe: slowly, slowly, then all at once. Having spent his favours and tested his friendships across the World Cup in numerous ways, he went nuclear with last week’s proposal to sell a portion of the World Cup to private investment, and manage it through a newly-created subsidiary, the FIFA Forward Enterprise.
It left the football world aghast to an extent not seen since 2021’s failed European Super League push. The details were extraordinary: from the backing of Joshua Kushner’s investment fund and its familial links to Infantino’s ‘close friend’ Donald Trump, to Infantino’s plan to chair a subsidiary he created from the end of his presidential term, sewing up ‘serious money’ for life.
There was also Infantino’s apparent strong-arming of member federations to agree to his plan by a self-determined deadline or literally pay the price, incentivising early adopters. The plan itself was withdrawn within three days, but the ructions have a distance to run.
‘I think this has to be the end of Infantino as FIFA president, given he’s clearly so tone deaf and out of step with the way the world thinks on this,’ Simon Hill told Box2Box.
‘But not only that. I think it needs to be the catalyst for a review into how FIFA does its business, and its governance structures and finances. It’s all too horribly opaque: it’s decision making processes, where the money goes, and relationships with powerful figures around the world.
‘Frankly, football deserves better, and I think this is a moment that has been a long time coming. We need a broom put through the place as a bare minimum, and then get into the deep corners of what FIFA does and make the whole thing a lot different going forward.’
Football Australia’s response was minimalist and reserved, certainly relative to the vociferous dissent voiced by certain members of UEFA and CONCACAF, and those confederations on the whole.
There is nothing to say Football Australia would have been enticed by the $20million USD on offer by signing up to the FFE – although they have posted losses of $15.3 & $8.3million over the past two financial years – but still, many found chairman Anter Isaac’s ‘welcoming of the proposal’s withdrawal’ wanting in the way of firm-handed dismissal.
Isaac’s initial letter has since been updated, with a lengthening of insight into Football Australia’s decision-making on the matter. But when pressed on whether they’d join the FA’s of Wales, England, Serbia and Finland et al. in publicly withdrawing support for Infantino (assuming they were part of the overwhelming majority to have initially backed him), they offered no further comment.
‘It’s probably not surprising, given the level of debt Football Australia is carrying at the moment. That $20million, if it were to be paid, would wipe out those debts at a stroke and leave a bit left over – perhaps for investment in things like the Australian Championship, or the national teams,’ said Hill.
‘I sort of understand those considerations by Football Australia. But I have to say, I’m disappointed but not surprised that they haven’t come out and said they would not support Infantino. I would have hoped they would have seen which way the wind is blowing on this.
‘To say ‘no comment’, I think is really wrong. Football Australia has a duty to be transparent to their stakeholders and to the football public. They shouldn’t be in the business of hiding information.’
As a member of the Asian Football Confederation, Football Australia finds itself part of perhaps the most fascinating region of all over the coming period. Led by president and senior FIFA council member Sheikh Salman, the AFC added their voice to the loudest initial dissenters in UEFA and CONCACAF, and Salman himself wrote to his AFC members labelling the manner of the FFE proposal ‘totally unacceptable.’
None of FIFA’s six confederations speak for a homogenous group of nations, but the 47 members of the AFC are an extremely diverse pool of cultures, beliefs, degrees of influence, and financial strength. As a result, so too their loyalties to Infantino.
‘Smaller nations like us depend on FIFA money, we are not a rich country. The moment I saw the proposal, I couldn’t help start forming all these plans of what we were going to do,’ Bhutan FA boss Ugen Tsechup told How Football Explains Asia.
Although their men’s team is ranked a lowly-192nd and drawing from a population of just 800,000, Bhutan holds a vote of equal weight to the rest of FIFA’s 211 member nations. They are representative of football’s underclass who may have more than a little affection towards Infantino, and the money he has undeniably distributed to the far corners of the game.
‘You can send out a statement that broadly represents what your confederation believes to be right, but when it comes to votes it is one member, one vote, and there are 211 votes on offer – so Infantino probably only needs a simple majority of 106 to stay in the job,’ said Hill.
‘I don’t know whether the AFC has the power to say to its members: ‘you will vote this way.’ I think it could certainly encourage them – but is it going to say to Qatar, for example, you must vote out the FIFA president? I don’t think its powers extend that far.
‘You’ve got to put out a broad principle, which they have done in fairness, and they’ve said ‘we don’t agree with this.’ They did stop short of giving a vote of no confidence in Infantino, and didn’t go as far as UEFA, who said they’d boycott all FIFA events until this is taken off the table.
‘I think you will see a few more countries break ranks because Infantino has been good for them. That’s the reality. He has increased the financial distributions quite significantly to all – and for that, he gets a debt of gratitude from some nations who might not have been able to survive without the money.’