ФИФА-гийн ерөнхийлөгч Жанни Инфантиногийн нөлөө хэвээр байна

Most editions of the FIFA public affairs newsletter are just email round-ups for those who refuse to follow Gianni Infantino’s Instagram feed.

Here is its president saying something about how amazing world football’s governing body is, here he is with U.S. President Donald Trump, here he is with some other head of state or global religious leader, here he is making jokes to a room full of billionaires.

Curated by FIFA’s international relations and public affairs team and sent to member associations and key stakeholders, they are like the family updates some people put in their Christmas cards, with Infantino being FIFA’s mum, dad and favourite child all at once.

But the newsletter that arrived in subscribers’ inboxes on Monday was missing something, or someone.

The first item was a story about FIFA donating $1million (£738,000) to communities affected by the recent earthquake in Venezuela. The next one was an edited version of an interview with chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina, in which the Italian dismissed “unfounded allegations” about the quality of his team’s work at this tournament. Then, there were items on the 2026 World Cup’s “record reach” and how its three mascots “promote sustainability”. The “and finally” was about a group of young New Yorkers taking part in a fitness campaign.

All very interesting, of course, but regular readers would have been left wondering: “Where’s Gianni?”

That question led the more discerning among them (yes, they exist, The Athletic has spoken to several of them) to ask if the man Trump calls the “king of soccer” was too embarrassed to show his face after the kerfuffle over Folarin Balogun’s suspended suspension.

Some even wondered if FIFA had been embarrassed by him.

The rationale was that after 10 years of bumping up against the line — blurring it, moving it, tip-toeing along it — Infantino had finally and irreparably crossed it by allowing, at the very least, the perception of political interference in the game itself.

The cosying up to Vladimir Putin, the stage-managed award of hosting a World Cup to Saudi Arabia, the rows with leagues and players’ unions, the Peace Prize, the strange speeches, turning up late to FIFA’s own congress, ticket prices, all of it. Whatever. Presidential prerogative, the ends justifying the means, Gianni being Gianni.

But a thumb on the scale for a powerful nation in an actual game in the knockout rounds of the World Cup? Too much, too far.

So we got public statements of moral indignation from European football confederation UEFA and several of that body’s leading national associations.

“When the certainty of rules is no longer guaranteed by its guardians, the integrity of the game is at stake and the credibility of a competition is undermined… we express our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision,” said UEFA last week.

And unlike previous green-ink missives to FIFA, UEFA did not immediately retract this one, so Europe seems to mean it this time.

Could, some speculated, Infantino’s seemingly guaranteed fourth term in office at FIFA no longer be so certain? Or, if he is allowed to remain on his perch until 2031, have his wings been clipped?

Lots of questions, then. Time for some answers: no, no and no.

Says who? Well, that is part of the problem with global football politics.The Athletic has spoken to a dozen senior officials, from a broad range of confederations, federations and interested parties, and none wanted to speak on the record for the obvious reason that FIFA keeps receipts.

But our sample was unanimous on several points.

One, the Balogun issue has already blown over (if it was ever even an issue in large parts of the planet). Two, nobody is standing against Infantino for president in 2027. Three, he will emerge from this tournament emboldened, not cowed. And four, are we absolutely certain he is leaving the scene in 2031?

“Everyone is thinking and talking about Infantino, but nobody ever does anything,” said one senior figure from a key FIFA stakeholder. “Everyone looks at these issues through their own personal risk/benefit balance and then decides to do nothing.”

Another, a prominent official from Europe, pointed out that it was ever thus in football, where all relationships are “transactional”.

Since taking over after the corruption scandals that brought down Sepp Blatter’s regime in 2016, Infantino has quadrupled the grants FIFA gives to its 211 member associations. And by adding new competitions and more games to existing ones, and then staging them in the world’s biggest economy, those grants are only going up. For many national federations, FIFA handouts represent at least three-quarters of their income.

FIFA has budgeted for $13billion (£9.6bn) in revenue for the four-year cycle that climaxes with this World Cup. Please, can nobody be surprised when Infantino announces that he was wrong about that target, as the greatest event in the history of humanity has delivered even more cash than expected. Well done, everyone (but especially him).

“On the other side,” the official continued, “it is argued that the principles and values of football are as important as finance”, hence the furore over Balogun’s red card.

“The political proximity of Infantino and Trump was always going to manifest itself at some stage in the tournament, and so it did. But the real truth is, despite the claims of some, this hasn’t weakened Infantino’s position in the slightest.

“There are parallel universes in football, and I’m afraid we (the official was referring to himself and objective media organisations) inhabit the one where values, probity and regulations matter. The other, which is in the ascendancy, thinks those are secondary matters.”

So much for Europe. What about the rest of the world?

According to one consultant who works with several Asian federations, the Balogun affair “appears to have blown over very quickly outside of Europe. Belgium winning (the round of 16 game the USMNT striker ended up playing in)and the incoming bonanza post-U.S. World Cup are both big factors. No federation I work with was too concerned after Belgium won. Many just said it was ‘unfortunate’.”

The consultant then observed that three confederations — those in Africa, Asia and South America — announced their unanimous support for Infantino at FIFA’s last congress in Vancouver, Canada, at the end of April. Between them, they account for 111 of FIFA’s 211 member associations.

There is precious little opposition elsewhere. The Oceania Football Confederation would be underwater without FIFA’s financial life rafts, likewise Concacaf’s large Caribbean contingent.

Europe has 55 votes, but even these are not necessarily opposed to Infantino. The English Football Association (FA) has already promised him its vote, despite the fact the Premier League and the Professional Footballers’ Association — its top clubs and players’ union — are in open dispute with FIFA over its monopoly control of the global match calendar.

Just to underline that earlier point about the “risk/benefit balance”, the FA played a key role in persuading UEFA to withdraw its angry memo about Infantino keeping everyone waiting at the 2025 FIFA Congress in Paraguay, and it also had nothing to do with UEFA’s Balogun complaint.

Why? Well, the FA has put its head above the parapet in the past, most memorably at the 2011 congress when then chairman David Bernstein tried to delay a previous presidential coronation but soon realised he was very much on an island.

There is also the small matter of the race to stage the 2035 Women’s World Cup, in which the United Kingdom is currently the only entrant but is still waiting for FIFA to formally declare it the winner. And if that is not enough on the risk side of the balance, the FA would love to host a men’s World Cup again at some point this century, too. After all, everyone else in its peer group has had a second or even third go at doing so already.

The boss of one significant stakeholder dismissed these concerns as poor excuses for being so “spineless”. For this official, the line was crossed when Infantino “misused and abused football’s credit” to give Trump his Peace Prize, and everything that has followed is a consequence of that.

Infantino’s FIFA Peace Prize for Donald Trump remains a source of contention (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The official added that they believe Infantino will emerge from this tournament feeling nothing but love from the vast majority of his electorate, even though he is almost certainly confusing their begrudging gratitude for actual affection, and will now continue with his personal agenda to turn FIFA, a governing body for a sport, into an entertainment conglomerate that bestrides the globe.

If you think that is exaggerated, how did Infantino respond to the storm that blew up after Trump told the world he rang him to try to get Balogun back for the big game with Belgium?

He gave an interview to Swiss outlet Bluewin where he effectively confirmed his intention to follow through on his plan to expand the World Cup again to 64 teams, despite having previously said FIFA should not enlarge so soon after going from 32 to 48 sides for this one and that some members of the FIFA Council were against it.

After all, his argument will flow: nine of the 10 African qualifiers this time made it to the round of 32, only Curacao were heavily beaten (7-1 by Germany, although they also drew with Ecuador, who beat the Germans) and how about Cape Verde? Never mind the fact that by going to 64 we can scrap the nonsense of eight of 12 third-placed teams in the group stage proceeding, the need for the likes of Scotland to hang around, not knowing until more games are played if they are in or out, have 24 more games to sell to broadcasters and maybe even find room for the likes of China, India, Italy and Nigeria to get in.

He may even try to win over the unconvinced by saying we will go to 64 teams in 2030 as a one-off to properly mark the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup by giving South America, which hosted that initial tournament, four lots of group games, as opposed to a piffling three matches… but then try to put that toothpaste back in the tube, as we are about to discover with the sudden switch from football being a game of two halves to one of four quarters.

And if you do not like that naked cash grab, sorry, natural next step for the world’s number one “happiness provider”, how do you feel about a 48-team Club World Cup, perhaps played every other year, not every four?

Double down, flood the zone, keep asking for more, make them play defence. Infantino is really good at this stuff. Being the guardian of the game’s long-term interests? The jury is out.

Of course, the Asian Football Confederation, Concacaf and UEFA may maintain their opposition to a 64-team World Cup… or they may find their members no longer see the harm in properly filling out the bracket, particularly when that should further boost their FIFA grants. Besides, if Cape Verde, Curacao, Haiti and Uzbekistan can qualify, why not them?

Likewise, European Football Clubs (EFC) boss Nasser Al-Khelaifi may be utterly committed to preserving the status of Europe’s top leagues and continental cup competitions, and therefore stand firm on his resistance to a bigger or more regular Club World Cup… or maybe the Paris Saint-Germain and beIN Sports chief will decide there is an inevitability about these things, so why not go with the flow?

Infantino knows the importance of playing politics at FIFA (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

We shall see, but it is probably worth noting that EFC and FIFA already have a “strategic partnership” in place until 2030 and are working on something that is privately being described as a similar joint venture to the one EFC has with UEFA, UC3, which has given it effective control of how the Champions League is run and sold.

In fact, several respondents to our quasi-survey suggested that whatever this joint venture becomes, it will need a boss one day and who better than Infantino, the man who put this thing together. That way, he and Al-Khelaifi could potentially swap jobs, as The Athletic first suggested last year.

Surely that is more likely than Infantino changing the statutes (again) to scrap the three-term limit to stretch his FIFA stay beyond 2031?

“I’m not ruling anything out at this point,” said one worried respondent.

“I think someone close to him will float the idea,” said another. “Maybe that will be the real red line for the confederations — but I wouldn’t put my house on it.”

Others wondered if there was some kind of Saudi soccer tsar role waiting for him, although nobody can be sure now how committed the kingdom remains to disrupting global sport, and that tsar could find himself without an empire in 2034.

Enough of such idle speculation, though. Let’s focus on what we know.

Infantino completely controls FIFA, and that is not changing any time soon.

And if the first five items in the next FIFA public affairs newsletter are not about him, I will print it off and eat it.