FIFA president Gianni Infantino is under increasing fire following a grossly bloated World Cup in which ticket prices reached unprecedented levels, drinks breaks were introduced for the benefit of TV companies’ ad revenue and a player had a suspension overturned on the whim of Donald Trump.
The president of European football’s governing body, Uefa, boycotted the final in protest at the Folarin Balogun scandal – the US striker whose red card Trump effectively had rescinded – calling the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable”. Aleksander Ceferin said it had “crossed a red line”.
And Javier Tebas, president of Spain’s La Liga – home league of the new world champions – has now called for Infantino to step down, claiming the world governing body is “destroying the football industry”.
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So what better time for Trump to decide he wants the Swiss to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, claiming he “is respected by everyone around the world”?
Sources close to the White House have told the New York Post that Trump thinks Infantino has “a special ability to bring people together” – which he does, albeit in opposition to him – and wants him to replace António Guterres of Portugal, who is retiring at the end of December.
It is reported that Trump considers the current leading candidates for the role to be “lame”. They include Chile’s socialist former president Michelle Bachelet, who is likely to face US resistance, and Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, the current director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (an awkward pick for the UK, given his country’s recent pronouncements on the Falklands).
To elect Infantino would mean overturning the UN’s usual rotation policy, which should see a candidate from Latin America or the Caribbean get the nod this time. But ironically Infantino has history of overturning such policies, handing three South American nations a game apiece in a 2030 World Cup ostensibly hosted by two European and one African nation – allowing Saudi Arabia to get the 2034 tournament unopposed.
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Paolo Zampolli, the Italian-American businessman and diplomat serving as Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships – and the man who suggested replacing Iran with non-qualifiers Italy in this year’s tournament – told the Post that “only President Trump could have such a genius idea”.
Zampolli said Infantino – who handed Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December last year to global mockery – “would do a great job” and is “liked by everybody”.
It is unlikely that the rest of the world would be as enthusiastic about Infantino taking the job as Trump. But perhaps most unenthusiastic may be the perks-loving FIFA boss – he currently earns around $6 million a year, while the UN secretary-general’s role pays a piffling $418,000.
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