Infantino’s World Cup gamble meets fierce resistance
Over the course of the World Cup, Gianni Infantino attended 45 matches and was captured by television cameras at every one of them. Rarely was there a moment when he was not wearing a smug look. Record-breaking commercial income was on its way, stadiums were full and he had a $20billion trick up his sleeve - he was going to flog off the rights to the greatest sporting show on earth to private investors, dressing it up as a way of making extra cash for FIFA’s 211 member nations.
Well, 55 of those member nations have told him what he can do with his scheme. Ditch it. Or face not having a World Cup at all. Or a Women’s World Cup. Or a Club World Cup. Or any FIFA-organised World Cup. Because without the European nations, there is no World Cup, of any kind. You can bet Gianni is not looking so smug today.
UEFA delivers an unprecedented warning
UEFA could not have been more unequivocal. A truly unprecedented statement read :
“No UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.”
But the UEFA statement goes way, way beyond announcing a boycott of FIFA competitions, in itself a genuinely seismic decision in the history of football governance. It lacerates Infantino’s integrity and morality. It lays his fitness for purpose to waste.
When talking of it being ‘irresponsible and indefensible’ that the FIFA proposal was ‘conceived in secret’, they are referring directly to Infantino. When talking of a ‘profound failure of leadership’, they are referring directly to Infantino. When talking of ‘an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football’, they are referring directly to Infantino. When talking of ‘governance by intimidation’, they are referring directly to Infantino.
This is UEFA, the association whose teams dominate the World Cup. The powerhouse association of world football. The association who provided six of the eight quarter-finalists at World Cup 2026. And in their landmark emergency meeting, they not only made sure Infantino’s outlandish scheme is dead in the water, they clinically and viciously dismantled the character of the man in charge of world football, the man who Donald Trump believes would make a good Secretary General of NATO.
Infantino’s position looks untenable
Well, perhaps Trump can get his mate the NATO gig because his position as FIFA president is now untenable. Infantino’s thick skin is the stuff of legend but it is impossible to see how he can stay in his post after this evisceration.
The statement from UEFA is pretty grand in its own morality. It concludes:
“Some things are simply too important to sell. The FIFA World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale.”
It needs to be said that UEFA have not been slow to commercialise European football but that is another story. They have been gunning for Infantino for some time, certainly since he launched the expanded Club World Cup. And with this disgraceful, ill-judged, avaricious, mood-ignorant plot of his, Infantino has left himself open to be taken down. UEFA have taken their chance with cold brutality. Infantino has to go.
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