There are sentences one never expected to write. Here is one: Sepp Blatter is beginning to look good. That is quite an accomplishment by Gianni Infantino.

Blatter presided over FIFA when corruption became so synonymous with international football that the organisation occasionally resembled a criminal enterprise with a sporting division. Eventually, American prosecutors arrived. In 2015, the United States indicted nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives on racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering charges arising from what prosecutors described as a 24-year corruption scheme. Two serving FIFA vice-presidents were among those charged. The scandal engulfed the organisation and helped end Blatter’s presidency.

There was always an exquisite irony about America’s sudden missionary zeal concerning FIFA governance. Five years earlier, the United States had competed for the 2022 World Cup and lost to Qatar in a secret vote of FIFA’s Executive Committee. One need not indulge conspiracy theories to appreciate the chronology. America lost the World Cup. A few years later, American law enforcement became intensely interested in the people who had been running world football. History sometimes has a mischievous sense of timing.

The resulting upheaval was supposed to produce a cleaner FIFA. It produced Gianni Infantino. Infantino has achieved something Blatter never quite managed. Blatter’s FIFA was notorious for what allegedly happened behind closed doors. Infantino has made the cultivation of political power so conspicuous that doors seem superfluous.

Consider FIFA’s Peace Prize. Yes, FIFA now has one. An organisation responsible for football apparently decided that the Nobel Committee had left an intolerable gap in the international awards market. Its inaugural choice was a man whose public repertoire includes demeaning opponents, invading and threatening other nations and treating political intimidation as an instrument of statecraft.

Consider FIFA’s Peace Prize. Yes, FIFA now has one. An organisation responsible for football apparently decided that the Nobel Committee had left an intolerable gap in the international awards market. Its inaugural choice was a man whose public repertoire includes demeaning opponents, invading and threatening other nations and treating political intimidation as an instrument of statecraft.

Apparently, in Infantino’s FIFA, these are not disqualifications for a peace prize but qualifications for one. In December, Infantino presented the inaugural prize to Donald Trump at the World Cup draw in Washington. He told Trump that he deserved it and, more remarkably, assured the American president that he could “always count” on Infantino’s support and that of the football community.

One wonders when the football community authorised the pledge. The issue is not whether one admires or despises Trump. It is why the president of FIFA is pledging his support to any politician. FIFA represents 211 national associations and professes political neutrality. Its president is supposed to administer world football, not audition for membership in the court of whichever president, monarch or prince happens to possess useful stadiums, money or political influence.

The relationship has now become sufficiently peculiar that Representative Jamie Raskin and other House Democrats want Infantino before the House Judiciary Committee. They are seeking documents concerning FIFA’s dealings with Trump, including communications, gifts and favours, as well as information concerning FIFA’s curious decision to lease office space in Trump Tower. Then there is Folarin Balogun.

After the American player received a red card during the World Cup, Trump........

© Middle East Monitor