He's got (most of) the world in his pocket

We were away when the latest FIFA scandal hit, out the fallout from it hit. Many have written about it, so sorry to be the latest and probably last.

But here goes.

Giovanni Vincenzo "Gianni" Infantino was elected FIFA President in 2015 on an anti-corruption ticket.

The decisions to give the 2018 tournament to Russia and the 2022 to Qatar were not his. But he had the power to open investigations into how inproper those two votes were back in 2010.

He did not open an investigation into either.

In fact, he moved to Qatar in time for the 2022 tournament, and brushed aside concerns about slave labour and deaths during contruction of the stadiums, stating he knew what it was like to be marginalised, as he grew up with ginger hair.

FIFA is supposed to be apolitical, so there was more than surprise when he announced that Donald Judas Trump was the winner of the first, and probably only, FIFA Peace Prize in 2025. Norway has raised a case with FIFA's ethics committee in regards to this, as it clear breaks a FIFA statute.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. So it is said.

In the run up to this year's World Cup in the US, Cristiano Ronaldo had his three match ban for a red card, given as he elboed an Irish player in the face, suspended.

The red card given to US forward, Folarin Balogun, was also suspended after Trump called on the FIFA President to ask it to be suspeded. The rules for the tournament stated, clearly, that a straight red card, or a red card for two yellows, would lead to a suspension. This was communicated to every team befvore they played each game, until after that decision.

Somali referee Omar Artan was banned from entering the US as he had a similar name to a person who had alleged links to a terrorist organisation. FIFA did not challenge this as would be expected. And the Iranian team had most of their officials and fans banned from entering the US, and the team itself could only enter the US on the day of the game and leave again as soon as their games were finished.

Again, FIFA did not challenge this, although there is clear reference to allowing free movement of fans, officials and players of participating countries in the legally binding contracts signed at the ceremony awarding the tornament.

In 2026, in an effort to raise $4.2 billion in development grants, Infantino proposed plans to sell a minority stake of FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), without the apparent knoowledge or approval of the FIFA executive committee or any of the 211 National FAs. Pressure was put on national FAs by the President to agree to this so to be eligiable for $40million in funding from the sale in September, failure to approve would mean no money.

This was dropped after a worldwide backlash, though due to the unaudited money funnelled to the National FAs in the poorer parts of the world, he seems likely to remain in post with their support. But support is crumbling. A little.

Nothing has been said by FIFA's commercial partners, whose baulking a the corruption under Blatter caused him to resign mere weeks after winning a further term in office.

UEFA is to boycott FIFA competitons until major changes are made, and that threat remains in place.

As an auditor, the fact that the President clearing bypassed the rules for decision making and change management without the knowledge of most of the organisation should have made his position untenable, and should have been removed from office, if such a process was available to it.

What could follow is a battle between UEFA and FIFA for the control and ethics of the game, and how much of the rest of world football will stand beside the European body. A split in the game seems a distinct possibility.