FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s desperate clinging to his job in the aftermath of his disastrous push to sell a share in the World Cup to private equity has prompted condemnation from around the football world.
European body UEFA has led the charge: first in threatening to boycott the World Cup should FIFA’s plan come to fruition, then in coming at Infantino himself with calls for his axing as president.
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A crisis meeting in Morocco after which FIFA executives pledged their support for the under-fire Swiss – and released a statement threatening blowback for continued criticism of the organisation – is unlikely to mend the growing rift between the body and its member nations.
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In the United Kingdom, however, the criticism has been far broader – directed not only at Infantino and FIFA, but also at their own Football Association too.
The charge? Failing, along with other European powerhouses, to curb Infantino’s many controversies in the months and years leading to the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“When we are truly at the “ding dong the witch is dead” stage of this narrative, no one will sing louder or more joyously than me,” football correspondent Martin Samuel wrote in The Times.
“But to be joined at the chorus by the very people who propped him up for a decade, who bowed lower and licked harder than all of the many sycophants, who could actually have acted to stop his corruption of the game’s worth, yet did the opposite. Well, let’s just say it’s something of a surprise.”
Samuel added: “Before we got to no, good grief there was an awful lot of yes.
“Yes to a World Cup across six countries, yes to a World Cup likely to have the same horrid flaws as the one in Qatar, yes to not having secret ballots, yes to supportive letters to a president who increasingly appears to regard Fifa’s disciplinary regime as fluid, open to suggestions or dependent on status.
“Yes to quarters, yes to half-time shows, yes to the FIFA peace prize, yes to the most expensive tickets in history, to egregious flattery, to creeping and crawling, to bowing and scraping, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”
Infantino’s latest scandal follows a controversial World Cup, at which stadium ticket prices and accusations of Argentina (and Lionel Messi) favouritism were hot topics throughout.
Most infamously, FIFA’s decision to overrule American star Folarin Balogun’s mandatory red card suspension for the USA’s quarter-final against Belgium, having been urged to do so by Donald Trump, sparked universal condemnation.
Infantino’s close personal relationship with Trump has also been criticised, most notably when he awarded the US president the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize late last year.
He also responded to queries over human rights abuses, the treatment of migrant workers and the safety of the LGBTQIA+ community at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar with a disastrous press conference where he proclaimed “Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled”.
However, as Samuel pointed out, Infantino had received near-unanimous support ahead of a potential re-election in early 2027 – including from the FA, whose chairwoman Debbie Hewitt presented the FIFA boss with a personalised England shirt less than two months ago.
“Never has an executive body found its voice and its ethical principle so swiftly, once deploying either comes with absolutely no risk of recrimination,” he wrote.
“It is close to impossible to be on the wrong side of this argument now. Yet it was only 40 days ago that Debbie Hewitt, the FA chair, was pictured grinning inanely while presenting the same blasted FIFA president with a personalised England shirt.
“It was around that time that the FA had endorsed his continued presidency by letter.
“Roughly 18 months before, Hewitt helped send the World Cup, unopposed, to Saudi Arabia — and the 2030 edition to three continents — on what amounted to the democratic equivalent of jazz hands.
“And now the man behind all of the many swindles — their guy, backed by them, in case you needed reminding after this frantic repositioning — is the devil incarnate?”
The Independent reporter Miguel Delaney was of a similar mind, raking world football over the coals for their tolerance of Infantino and FIFA’s long push towards the extremes of 2026.
“Infantino may now go, but everyone still has to live with the consequences of those decisions. The football world will still have to traipse off to Saudi Arabia in eight years, having many of the same debates from Qatar about human rights and migrant labour,” he wrote.
“And that’s because Infantino was allowed to do all of this by the same football politicians now condemning him.
“One reason he felt emboldened to round on media criticism as recently as Monday was that he wasn’t used to any criticism within the game.
“As one source said, “not enough national associations stood up to the unacceptable” – until it was unpalatable.”
The Mirror’s Andy Dunn, meanwhile, was left baffled by the FA’s – and other European footballing administrations’ – decade-long support of Infantino.
“In theory, the FA should have one of the most powerful voices in world football but, effectively, it has been silent during a decade in which his tenure has become increasingly embarrassing,” he wrote.
“The Welsh set the ball rolling when it released a statement on Monday morning. It read: “The Football Association of Wales hereby confirms its withdrawal of support for the candidature of Mr Gianni Infantino for re-election as FIFA president for the 2027-31 term.
“The recent failures in good governance, processes, leadership, values, stakeholder management, communications and sound judgement have led us to a position where Mr Infantino has lost the confidence of the FAW to remain at the helm of world football. Failing to put the best interests of football first is a failure we cannot accept.”
“Again, the obvious response is to wonder how he had their confidence in the first place.”
For others, the push to oust Infantino, as it was for Sepp Blatter when the ex-FIFA boss resigned in 2015 amid a swath of corruption charges aimed at top executives, comes too little too late.
While the private equity push has been scrapped, the 2034 World Cup will return to the Middle East when Saudi Arabia hosts the prestige tournament.
Meanwhile, accusations Infantino has promised Morocco hosting rights for the 2030 final in return for their support of his presidential re-election, though denied by FIFA, persist.
“For years the injustices, the indignities, the reputational and environmental damage, the ruptures to rules and structures, the stitch-ups and dead migrant workers, have been waved through by acclamation,” football scribe Jonathan Liew wrote in The Guardian.
“And so it is worth wondering whether anything has materially changed here, beyond the fleeting opportunity for ambitious footballing executives to claim the keys to Infantino’s empire.”
Writing in The i Paper, Daniel Shaw urged football leaders to use the Infantino furore to spark a change in governance on a worldwide scale – with a push led by the people.
“We also need to send a message to those in charge of sporting governance: you are not getting it and we are sick of it,” he wrote.
“You are supposed to work for us and the sport itself, not for yourselves. How dare you lose sight of that ethic.
You are paid incredibly well and we stomach it, because the responsibility demands excellence.
“But your job is not an echo chamber of self-serving, private jets and rubbing shoulders with world leaders. You are not paid to position yourself for greater wealth and celebrity. You exist in a position of honour and privilege that should provoke humility not arrogance.
“You are not kings or queens, but servants.”
As for Infantino’s future, fears persist that the 56-year old could yet retain his job once the immediate firestorm cools.
Writing in The Independent, Joy Lo Dico deemed the Swiss a “cockroach” who, with lessons learned from the “Donald Trump playbook”, may be able to weather the storm.
“Elected in 2016, just as Trump first seized power, Infantino has staged World Cups in two of the world’s more delicate host nations, Qatar and the USA, and proved he can do Realpolitik with anyone,” Lo Dico wrote.
“What he also understands, apparently, is the world of power and politics. Popularity is something for little people, and the need for it is a character flaw to shun.
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“Other qualities are valued: you must be teflon, but also sticky. What you really need is the capacity to cling-on.”
But even if Infantino is ousted, Lo Dico added, it’s doubtful his replacement will be any different.
“FIFA has to straddle curious politics. But it needs a certain kind of person to manage it,” she wrote.
“If not Infantino, who? Someone similar. He and his ilk won’t be stamped out any time soon.”
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