The war between FIFA and UEFA over the privatization of the World Cup breathes like a fight between mob bosses. Something similar to the historic moment when the mafias debated whether they should open up to the drug and arms business or limit themselves to what they had been doing historically. That is, extorting businessmen and merchants and buying politicians to rig public tenders and judges to guarantee immunity.
Read more No UEFA, no ‘party’
Infantino is consistent. He accepts naturally that he and football are prostituted and that, once that is established, nothing should prevent the full satisfaction of the client, that is, money. Burning cigarettes on the skin? Go ahead if the client demands it! A snuff movie? Of course, it’s just a matter of price!
There is a war over how to manage the economic brothel that football has become
Infantino’s football brothel operates with a single rule: if you want it and can pay for it, you get it. A next-generation football pimp. Football becomes a sex slave in his hands. A hundred services per night? All are welcome. And if it can be two hundred, even better. Against Infantino’s libertarian pimping, UEFA and the announced boycott by its federations of the World Cups if FIFA’s announced privatization plans are maintained.
The bigwigs of European football represent the old mafia in this battle. The one that wants to maintain a minimum code of morality. Prostituted yes, but only up to a certain point and with a more limited catalog of services. There is a difference between being a whore and openly admitting it and boasting about it.
The result is an open war over how to manage the economic brothel that the world of football has become. A battle as passionate as it is, deep down, vomit-inducing.
Read more UEFA welcomes FIFA’s step back, but warns: «They must be held accountable»
We are, of course, on UEFA’s side and its newfound attack of dignity. The European body is right when it states that private investors don’t care at all about the ball, the players, and especially the fans. In pure investor logic, the crowds are nothing more than sheep willing to loosen their wallets if given the right stimulus. Hundreds of millions of Pavlovian rats ready to fork out cash when they hear a whistle. But there’s more. Football is also a useful geopolitical tool. Hence why Trumpism, via Infantino, is so interested in colonizing it. Money and power, the two currencies that, unchecked and taken to the extreme, define unscrupulous people. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how this World Cup battle ends. It’s just one more of many yet to come. Money is very persistent and seductive. It can’t buy everything, but almost.
Also read
The spirit of the times plays in favor of Infantino’s theses, although they will not materialize immediately. The old mafia ended up selling drugs and opening up to arms trafficking, surrendered to the profitability of those new markets.
We do not know why this time it should be different if human nature remains exactly the same as always.
Read more George R.R. Martin, the king who does not deliver the kingdom
