No romance in history has a reputation quite like the one between the FIFA presidency and allegations of corruption. Those who run the beautiful game are not renowned for their law-abiding nature. In an interview on The Rest Is Politics: Leading, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin half-joked that he had met more criminals in two years of football than in 25 years of criminal law: all of the last three FIFA presidents, extending back to 1974, have been involved in major corruption scandals.
Following the resignation of then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2015, a seemingly moderate candidate named Gianni Infantino ran for office on the mandate to clean up the organisation’s stained reputation, and to return the beautiful game to its namesake. Ten years later, Infantino’s legacy has been anything but. Tainted by a series of controversial decisions, critiqued for monetising football at the expense of sporting legitimacy, scolded for manipulating member votes and interfering with officiating decisions, Infantino has scored lots of own goals over the course of his shaky tenure.
Start as you mean to go on
After his appointment in 2016, it did not take long for the first scandal to hit, which concerned accepting unauthorised private jet flights from non-accredited officials. Shortly after, it was found that Infantino had covertly held multiple meetings with the man tasked with investigating corruption in football: then-Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber. The contents of their meeting were never made publicly available, although the affair led to Lauber’s resignation.
Cosying up to the Kremlin
During his reign, Gianni Infantino’s tendency to cosy up to autocratic or undemocratic leaders has not gone unnoticed, widely seen as driven by the financial gains and gifts that he receives as a result of these ‘friendships’.
In light of the Russia-Ukrainian War stemming from 2014, discriminatory treatment of minorities, and autocratic government initiatives, many in the West were critical of the prospect of a Russian World Cup. The FIFA President, however, scolded Western media, issuing a firm warning not to “paint with dark paint everything that comes from the East” and asserting in confident fashion that: “Russia has changed”.
When the World Cup came around again four years later, Russia could not compete, having been suspended following its illegal invasion of Ukraine. This year, as the death totals pile up on both sides of war, Infantino called for the ban to be lifted.
The Gulf between reality and rhetoric
Before a ball had been kicked in Qatar, the 2022 World Cup had already proved controversial. Reports that Qatari officials had bribed FIFA members to be awarded the tournament under Sepp Blatter, the alleged abuse of migrant workers building the stadiums, and the criminalisation of LGBTQ+ offences led many in the international community to condemn the Finals. In a Guardian article titled ‘Built on the blood of slaves’, it was presented that 60% of Brits were opposed to Qatar receiving the tournament (with 39% supporting a boycott). Once again, however, Swiss-born Infantino came out swinging, armed with tu quoque fallacies and accusing Europeans of double standards under the pretense of 3,000 years of colonisation.
His infamous Doha speech caused a further stir, when he claimed: “Today I feel gay. Today I feel [like a] migrant worker. I know what it feels like to be discriminated [against]…At school I was bullied for having freckles and red hair”.
Infantino’s close-knit relationship with Saudi Arabia made international headlines when, following a long-term deal between the Gulf nation’s state-owned oil company Aramco and FIFA, Saudi Arabia was awarded the 2034 World Cup. Unlike previous bidding controversies where dodgy deals were behind closed doors and hard to prove, Gianni Infantino urged the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to support the bid and actively discouraged other nations from launching their own. In an attempt to score a remarkable own goal, the FIFA president publicly congratulated Saudi Arabia a year before they were officially awarded the tournament.
Following a failed forced handshake between the Israeli and Palestinian delegates at a 2026 FIFA convention, it seemed Infantino’s 2018 pledge that, “politics should stay out of football and football should stay out of politics” was no longer his belief.
It’s called football….right?
As Messi bowed out of international football with grace at the recent World Cup, ageing like fine wine to the last, the same tournament has curdled Infantino’s reputation – making him seem less a president than a sidekick to the highest bidder.
In keeping with his habit of making friends out of strong leaders, Infantino has become inextricably linked to US President Donald Trump as of late. Months before the World Cup was to be hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, a first-of-it-kind FIFA Peace Prize was fashioned for Trump; who believed he had wrongfully been denied the Nobel Peace Prize two months prior; provoking widespread ridicule.
It is hard to summarise everything wrong about the 2026 World Cup in anything shorter than a novella. Honourable mentions are: the eye-watering ticket and transport prices over the course of the tournament, Infantino’s daily usage of private jets to get anywhere and everywhere, hydration breaks, and the dismissal of blatant racism when Somali referee Omar Artan was subjected to an 11 hour interrogation before being deported from Miami on little to no evidence as to why.
If you receive a red card in a World Cup game, you miss the following fixture. That is, of course, unless you are US striker and star player Folarin Balogun, who was sent off following a rash challenge against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32. In one of the biggest controversies in the competition’s history, the suspension was delayed for a one-year period to be served at some point in 2027 instead. Amidst the shock of the entire football community, President Trump (who did not know what a red card was at the time) stepped in to offer a rational explanation: “I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul”. He went on to say that he had called his friend Infantino to express this opinion, and thanked FIFA for “reversing a great injustice” by delaying the suspension.
Allegedly interfering with on-pitch decisions was a step too far for most football fans, eroding whatever popularity Infantino had left having irreversibly tarnished FIFA’s commitment to political neutrality. For the remainder of the tournament, boos rang out in pubs, fanzones, and stadiums whenever either president appeared on the big screen.
Although the tournament put millions in his pocket, it left an Infantino-shaped hole in the back pages of the papers. Fortunately, it wouldn’t have to wait long to be filled.
The final act?
Infantino’s latest controversy has seen him set up FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) – a subsidiary which would effectively privatise the World Cup, selling large stakes to wealthy investors (Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, was among the names of those allegedly involved). Football, and by extension the World Cup, is generally seen as a global public good. Despite its reported $15 billion earnings from the recent tournament, FIFA is a non-profit organisation tasked with keeping football public and accessible.
Many football associations believed the Forward Enterprise existed to benefit a few individuals over the collective good. As a result, Europe’s UEFA and North and South America’s CONCACAF came together to condemn the initiative, along with the man who envisioned it. Although Infantino’s supporters became vocal after it was announced that member states supporting the move would receive $40 million towards their respective programmes, the campaign proved short-lived. After UEFA threatened to boycott future FIFA tournaments, including the upcoming U20s Women’s World Cup, Gianni Infantino finally caved.
According to BBC Sport, on the 27th August, the 55 member associations were presented with a letter which guarantees the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan will not be revived.
What comes next?
His supporters point to the success of the 48-team World Cup that Infantino envisioned, along with the ways in which he grew the sport financially, to justify the accompanying controversies. Though these voices are numerous enough to avoid a vote of no confidence (which requires three quarters of members to vote for the motion), there is hope among his biggest critics that Infantino will be ousted in the scheduled election next March.
Regardless of the outcome, it is hard to see the football community forgiving Gianni Infantino for the damage he has done to the sport he claims to love. If FIFA’s presidency and corruption really are football’s longest-running double act, this August’s climbdown is a sign that divorce may be on the cards. By forcing the federation to U-turn on their plan to privatise sport’s most prestigious competition UEFA didn’t solely win an argument about an unjust subsidiary – it proved that Infantino, and by extension FIFA, can be made to blink. Whether this is a sign of lasting change, however, is what 211 votes in Rabat will decide next March, or sooner still, if Infantino personally decides to blow for full-time.
