Infantino – a victim of his own ambition?
Gianni Infantino’s worst enemy as world football supremo is not Swiss justice or any disaffected European. It is his own haste to make his mark.
FIFA presidents do not, traditionally, lose their grip on the job. The levers are too powerful. In 116 years only nine men have wielded that power. Three of them (Daniel Woolfall, Arthur Drewry and Rodolfe Seeldrayers) died in office; one stepped down because he was too busy in his day job (journalist Robert Guerin in 1906); and two retired due to old age costing them their touch (Jules Rimet and Joao Havelange).
Only one, Sir Stanley Rous in 1974, was tragically voted out of office. Few in the UK now know of the key role played by the former top referee and FA secretary in turning FIFA into a real world body and then laying the foundations for the creation of UEFA.
Infantino was elected in 2016 as a “clean” candidate. As UEFA’s general secretary, he had not slithered up from the corrupt snake pit of the FIFA exco, nor was he tainted by any direct association with the rotten regime of outgoing Sepp Blatter.
He promised: “We will restore the image of FIFA to win back the respect of the entire world through our hard work and commitment and focus, once again, on this beautiful game.”
Infantino arrived with plenty of goodwill. He needed only focus on three targets: to steer clear of the United States and Swiss courts as they punished FIFAGate criminality; to avoid picking unnecessary fights; and to ramp up development cash to the middling and minnow FAs. Their grateful majority would guarantee him re-election again and again.
Infantino would have been aware that, by the time he may complete a third full four-year term (notionally in 2031 when he will be “only” 61), happy supporters might even enact a statutes amendment so he could carry on wielding the cheque book.
He also knew that the old guard within FIFA were not happy with an ex-UEFA apparatchik as their new boss. All the more reason not only to bring over from Nyon some of his old acolytes but to ensure he played strictly by the internal rules. That should have included care over the use of private jets, the issue which had contributed to the downfall of ex-secretary general Jerome Valcke.
Infantino might have studied the reflections of predecessor Blatter on the leap from a general secretary to a president. As Blatter told this writer years after his own elevation from FIFA CEO in 1998: “I tried to do too much too soon. I should have taken time to watch, listen and learn.”
Fashionably, new bosses in any sphere are tempted to quickly impress their style; a dangerous temptation. But Infantino was a man not merely in a hurry but reckless haste. Within weeks of election he threw his support behind VAR trials, reversing his own UEFA policy; he flew to Russia and Qatar to check on World Cup preparations for 2018 and 2022; then a month later he attended the UEFA Champions League final in Milan before flying down to Rome for a family audience with Pope Francis.
Controversy over who paid for at least two of the flights remains a murky issue which will not go away. The ethics committee, alerted to internal concerns, decided an investigation into a new president would be unseemly.
Infantino has caused further waves by forcing out audit and compliance chairman Domenico Scala; undertaking secretive negotiations with outside investors about financing his pet expansion of the Club World Cup; upsetting African football bosses by sending Fatma Samoura, his own personal appointee as secretarygeneral, to run chaotic CAF for six months; and going head-to-head with Trinidadian courts over attempts to normalise the Trinidad & Tobago FA.
Nothing, however, has generated as many self-inflicted headaches for Infantino as the Michael Lauber affair. In late 2019 the Football Leaks operation revealed that Swiss Attorney-General Lauber had held unreported meetings with Infantino in July 2015 then March and April
Bosses in any sphere are tempted to quickly impress their style; a dangerous temptation. But Infantino was a man not merely in a hurry but reckless haste
2016. Subsequently it emerged that a further secret meeting had been held between Lauber and Infantino, not in either man’s office, but in the Schweizerhof hotel in Bern.
Infantino’s enemies and the media leaped on the revelations. Lauber had been overseeing more than 20 FIFA case files since 2015. Why should he compromise the process by meeting Infantino? Why were the meetings secret? What was there to hide?
Worse, Lauber claimed he could not remember meetings which were not noted in his official diary. Neither he nor Infantino could remember any detail of the discussions. Infantino, on being pushed, insisted that meeting Lauber to discuss cases in which FIFA considered itself a victim of corrupt practices had been perfectly logical and that the fuss was “absurd.”
But pressure was building. Formal complaints against Lauber and Infantino were registered anonymously with the judiciary in Bern and an inquiry launched. Special prosecutor Stefan Keller duly opened a criminal investigation into Infantino’s actions and proposed similar for Lauber.
In the past, FIFA’s response to legal trouble has been to deny wrongdoing, refuse further comment and sit out the storm. Not this time. An aggressive response has been led by Scottish deputy secretary-general Alasdair Bell. Keller’s qualifications and experience have been belittled in character-assassinating leaks to local media.
It’s a who-dun-it with an unusual twist: the “who” are known. It’s what they “dun” which is unknown. That is the conundrum for Keller in seeking answers: innuendo is not enough.
If Lauber and Infantino maintain their amnesiac approach and no damning paperwork is uncovered, then FIFA’s president will live to fight another day. But a formal charge would bring him crashing down. He dare not continue to sail so close to the wind.
Maybe it’s not too late, though he may resent the source, to heed Blatter’s advice to listen and learn…not least from his own mistakes. To misquote William Congreve: manage at haste, repent at leisure.
Brexit silver lining?
As if surviving COVID-19 were not sufficient, British club football is about to confront a further challenge: Brexit – an issue pushed into the shadows by the never-ending impact of the pandemic.
Yet there may be a silver lining amid the clouds of confusion. For international competition, Brexit is irrelevant. After all, only half the 55-strong membership of UEFA are European Union countries. So that means no change as far as World Cup, European Championship, Nations League, Champions League and Europa League are concerned.
Other European leagues and clubs hope the consequences of Brexit will curb the Premier League’s attraction to players and broadcasters. They hope to cream off a slice of the financial action. They will hope in vain. The Premier League is likely to maintain its primacy.
Indeed, it could become even richer and more powerful. After all, the removal of EU business controls will only make it easier for Arab, Chinese and American investors to throw ever more zillions of dollars at the English game.
That is one very welcome prospect at the end of the COVID-19 crisis tunnel.
A champagne toast
Tradition is football’s foundation. Hence good to see Reims back in Europe even if their Europa League foray was ended swiftly by Hungary’s Fehervar.
Reims’ last European appearance had been their 1963 defeat by Feyenoord in the quarter-finals of the European Cup, where they were runners-up in 1956 and 1959 to Real Madrid. Their return duly prompted a “welcome back” message from Real president Florentino Perez.