“How did you go bankrupt?” a character is asked in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. “Gradually, then suddenly” comes the reply. Right now, Fifa’s justly besieged president, Gianni Infantino, is experiencing something similar in relation to the loss  of his own authority.

Since taking over the running of world football’s governing body in 2016, Mr Infantino has survived regular criticism of a monetising approach which has often come at a sporting cost. But since egregious plans to sell a stake in the World Cup to the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law were leaked to the media, his credibility has been draining away at speed.

After crisis talks this week at Fifa’s lavish new African headquarters in Rabat, Mr Infantino authorised a half-hearted and incomplete apology, acknowledging that the now aborted project “could have been handled differently”. But it is very hard to imagine how a sell-off to private equity that........

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