The president of world football’s governing body should abandon geopolitical networking and address criticisms over World Cup ticketing
T
o general bemusement, Gianni Infantino, the president of world football’s governing body, Fifa, was pictured congratulating Donald Trump last month at the Gaza peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, having been personally invited by the US president. Mr Infantino did not hold back in lauding the president’s peace-making prowess, commenting: “Now we can really write some new pages. Pages of togetherness, of peace, in a region which really, really needs it.”
News that Fifa is to launch its own annual peace prize, with the inaugural award to take place in Washington next month, would therefore seem to point to only one outcome. To use a metaphor from another sport, it surely looks like a slam dunk for the man Fifa’s president describes as a “winner” and “close friend”. As Mr Infantino told an American business forum on the day he announced the prize: “We should all support what [Mr Trump is] doing because I think it’s looking good.”
The rest of us can be excused for wishing that Mr Infantino was spending less time on inappropriate Maga networking and self-aggrandising stunts, and more on addressing criticism of how he is performing in his day job. Ahead of this summer’s men’s World Cup, the sports academic and Guardian US columnist Leander Schaerlaeckens has justly accused Fifa of being “fully focused on monetizing the sport, no matter the collateral damage”. Recently unveiled ticketing arrangements for the tournament, which will take place in the US, Canada and Mexico, more than bear that judgment out.
