NEW YORK — Back by popular demand, headlining in New York/New Jersey, the man who stole the world. Gianni Infantino’s big weekend began with a speech at the United Nations HQ on Friday followed by a reception in his honour hosted by President Donald Trump in an eponymous golden tower just a mile away.
The World Cup has delivered Infantino the dream vista, the defending World Champions Argentina against the European champions Spain in New York, the biggest game in world football in the world’s most dynamic metropolis. Lionel Messi versus Lamine Yamal.
It could have been bettered only by the involvement of Cristiano Ronaldo but that would have left Infantino open to accusations of manipulation, which is against football’s code of honour as well as Fifa statutes. And let’s face it, none could accuse him of that.
Well, okay, that’s a stretch. Infantino makes Niccolo Machiavelli’s scheming creation, the Prince, blush, no genuflection too great, no bow too low, no cap too big to doff.
Though Fifa is the most powerful body in sport, Infantino has surpassed the great Sepp Blatter in his alignment of sports richest economy with global politics. There is no world leader whose boots Infantino will not lick, no CEO to whom he will not ingratiate himself if it gets him through the door.
He hit the jackpot with the United States where Trump is both king and CEO, giving Infantino carte Blanche to exploit football’s fanatical base and sell it back to them as privilege.
This requires some sacrifice, of course, namely the willingness to burn through the ethical and regulatory rule book to satisfy one’s own ends. Thus did Infantino sanction the most expensive pricing structure in ticketing history, force upon the host cities sky high travel and accommodation costs just to break even, sanction travel bans on fans, participants and referees, impose add breaks in each half and pass them off as health benefits even in temperature controlled stadia where rehydration was never an issue.
The most egregious adulteration resulted in the reinstatement of USA striker Folarin Balogun versus Belgium following a straight red for dangerous play against Bosnia-Herzegovina. One call from Trump to Infantino was all it took for Fifa’s opaque disciplinary committee to torch regulatory protocols and deliver an altered state without explanation.
There is no right of appeal. The United States accepted the outcome despite disputing the validity of the card. Infantino slithered beneath a rock called independence to legitimise the secretive actions taken by Fifa lawmakers, claiming with a remarkably straight face it would not be right for him to influence outcomes.
None of the above put a crease in his well-cut navy suit and crisp white shirt when he addressed the United Nations in a celebratory speech that framed the tournament in an alternative reality known only to the FIFA comms office and the White House press department.
Omar Artan, the Somali referee, banned from taking part over supposed vetting issues, would have been reaching for his English dictionary to reconcile his understanding of the word “community” with Infantino’s. The fiction of bringing people together, a central motif of Infantino’s Disneyesque rhetoric, would have fallen hard on the ears of all those denied entry, be they fans, officials or players.
Infantino moved on to Trump Tower to fawn over the most powerful man in the world as a medieval courtier might, his unctuous servility leaving an oily residue on the carpet. “The American dream Mr President came to reality. We united the world,” Infantino gushed.
Trump wouldn’t know a penalty box from a jewellery box. He has yet to attend a match, though he will be centre-stage at the presentation ceremony. The World Cup is PR fantasia for him, a useful tool convened by a useful idiot which has the useful benefit of deflecting from a pointless war with Iran and his absurd obsession with voting conspiracies, both of which are a massive drag on voter confidence in mid-terms year.
Funnily enough the Balogun incident didn’t get a mention in Trump’s eulogy to Infantino. The tournament’s dark underbelly flows unseen like a sewer, unremarked by the powers that be but detected nonetheless by the rank and file, who cannot be but touched by the smell.
Such has been the degree of mistrust of refereeing throughout the tournament particularly in relation to Argentina’s progress, one commentator identified referee Ismail Elfath as a greater threat to England’s progress than Messi in the semi-final.
He was right. The numbers bore out the sentiment, Argentina registering the most infractions of any team in the opening ten minutes of the semi-final and 12 in all during the first half, for the collection of just one yellow card.
Incredibly Giuliano Simeone, whose wild MMA simulations accounted for five free-kicks, went unpunished whilst Elliott Anderson, almost decapitated by Enzo Fernandez inside three minutes, was booked for impeding Messi. At least he was somewhere near the ball.
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Egypt were scathing of their treatment in the round of 16 alleging outright favouritism towards Messi, all of which Fifa’s head of referees Pierluigi Collina dismissed as losers’ lament.
As a result an overwhelming sense of misappropriation of football’s ancient conventions has clung to Infantino. The unwanted World Cup final half-time ceremony that threatens to double the interlude from 15 minutes to half an hour, is one final insult to suffer.
Since there is no means to unseat him given the dependence of the majority of global federations on Fifa cash handouts, the court of Infantino grows ever stronger, promising a 64-team event at soon as the next World Cup in 2030. At least Trump will have left the scene by then.
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