“How did you become bankrupt?” one character asks another in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. “Little by little, and then all at once,” is the answer. Fifa president Gianni Infantino now appears to be undergoing a comparable collapse in his authority.
Since assuming control of football’s global governing organisation in 2016, Mr Infantino has repeatedly weathered criticism over his drive to generate revenue, often at the expense of the sport itself. However, after alarming proposals to sell part of the World Cup to the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law became public, confidence in his leadership has rapidly deteriorated.
Following emergency discussions this week at Fifa’s opulent new African headquarters in Rabat, Mr Infantino approved a limited and unconvincing apology, admitting that the abandoned proposal “could have been handled differently”. Yet it is difficult to see how transferring a stake to private investors—a move that could have endangered the administration of the world’s most popular sport and potentially benefited Mr Infantino personally—could ever have been managed appropriately. In essence, the plan placed commercial interests ahead of football, despite the organisation already holding reserves worth billions of pounds.
Mr Infantino ought to step down. Despite fierce criticism from senior figures within Fifa and celebrated former players such as Arsène Wenger and Luís Figo, he seems intent on remaining in office and waiting for the outrage to pass. Consequently, the dispute is likely to become even more divisive. During his decade in power, Fifa’s president has worked carefully to secure support across the global south. On Friday, Mexico and Argentina broke with their regional federation and joined several African countries in backing his continued leadership.
The response of Uefa, European football’s governing organisation, will therefore be crucial. On Thursday, it firmly rejected Mr Infantino’s attempt to close the matter and reiterated that it no longer had confidence in his presidency. Norway went further on Friday, becoming the first national federation to demand his resignation directly. The next possible step would be to carry out the threatened boycott of Fifa competitions, beginning with the Under-20 Women’s World Cup scheduled to take place in Poland next month.
Such action would undoubtedly be significant. Nevertheless, attempting to commit the World Cup’s future to investors seeking to extract greater profits represented a grave misuse of authority. From the controversial decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup to interventions involving inconvenient red cards, Mr Infantino has repeatedly created disputes and then disregarded the criticism. This time, his conduct must produce meaningful consequences.
In a striking display of arrogance, a statement issued from Mr Infantino’s headquarters in Rabat declared that the organisation “will no longer tolerate any attacks on its integrity, good governance and due process”. The claim is remarkably audacious. Unless Fifa’s president resigns, is removed from office or loses an election next March, international football risks being drawn into a bitter internal conflict—all because of one man’s unprecedented effort to sell one of the sport’s most valuable assets. Mr Infantino was widely ridiculed for his remarks before the Qatar World Cup, when he claimed to identify with gay people and migrant workers in response to criticism. For the sake of the sport he says he cares about, he should now demonstrate genuine self-awareness.
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