Infantino, Trump leave stain on ‘beautiful game’

“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”

— European soccer body UEFA

The recently completed FIFA World Cup was a rousing success despite itself.

Grossly expensive tickets, shameless off-loading of costs to taxpayers in host cities and political intrusions by U.S. President Donald Trump could have made the World Cup a disaster.

Fortunately for soccer fans, FIFA and its morally fluid president, Gianni Infantino, the on-field product was glorious. You would think after an improbable success like that, Infantino would be cautious about further amplifying his desire for more, bigger and more lucrative.

Clearly, however, Infantino’s greed is insatiable. And that greed may have finally sunk his career.

With confetti from the final match still hanging in the air, Infantino unveiled plans last Tuesday for FIFA Forward Enterprise, a US$20-billion company that would run future FIFA events including the World Cup and the Club World Cup. The entity would have sold a US$4-billion stake to a company called Thrive Eternal, which is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

The whole nature of the proposal and the people who have been involved in it has sent shock waves through the global football community. And since last Tuesday, the backlash against the plan grew so strong it has threatened the World Cup itself.

The 55 member nations of UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, the 47 members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the 41 nations represented by CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean) have rejected Infantino’s proposal.

UEFA went the furthest by unanimously threatening to boycott future FIFA events, including the 2030 World Cup slated to be hosted in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

“(Football) is not FIFA’s to sell,” UEFA said in a statement.

With pressure growing, Infantino was forced to scrap the plan on Saturday after his senior adviser, who sat on a White House panel, resigned.

In the wake of that decision, UEFA issued a statement that was a shot across the bow to Infantino and those who would have stood to benefit from the plan.

“We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track time scales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game,” UEFA said. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account. It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close co-operation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.”

The motivations behind FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) were murky to begin with. Although many high-wealth individuals would love to get a piece of what is arguably the world’s biggest sporting event, it’s not clear what “a piece” would have entailed.

Even though he promised FIFA would retain control of 80 per cent of the new entity, investors don’t turn over billions of dollars for nothing, and there would likely have been consequences for football fans.

The proposal also threatened to pervert the very idea of FIFA. It is a Swiss-based, not-for-profit entity controlled by 211 national member federations, and profits from FIFA tournaments are largely returned to those federations through “cycle” payments every four years to support football development. A new, semi-private commercial entity could easily have disrupted this relationship in the long term. No doubt, Infantino was trying to draw eyes away from long-term consequences by providing short-term incentives. He said an initial US$4-billion investment from Kushner’s Thrive Eternal would be used to dramatically increase the next cycle payment.

Member federations were scheduled to receive roughly US$20 million over the next four years. With an initial investment from Thrive Eternal, member federations would have received additional one-off payment of US$20 million, for a total of US$40 million in the leadup to the next World Cup.

There is little doubt this offer — made before FIFA federations have had a chance to formally vote on Infantino’s offer — was a bribe. We know this because Infantino warned that nations that voted against his plan would only get US$10 million.

There is a great amount of anger at this proposal, how it was handled, and who was involved — and not just from international soccer organizations.

The last World Cup suggested that top-flight international competitions such as the World Cup are being priced out of reach of regular fans. And you can bet, had this deal gone through, the cost of attending exhibitions of the beautiful game would have only increased. Fans of the game would have been caught in the middle of this mess, and the outrage has been palpable.

Though Infantino has hastily scrapped the FFE plans, the damage to his career has already been done, and his future as FIFA president is looking increasingly tenuous.

The extent of the damage to FIFA, however, is unclear at this point. An investigation into the president’s actions and the Trump family’s involvement is certainly warranted.

» Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun