Gianni Infantino thought he could emulate with the king of sports what Trump does with the politics of his country. After becoming the puppet of the American leader in recent months, his latest blunder could become his tomb (with a re-election on the horizon). His institutional evolution is worthy of study: he arrived at FIFA appearing as a diligent secretary general and ended up becoming a mix of courtier and commercial agent at the orders of power and money.
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Infantino no longer presides over football: he offers it as if it were his own. He took a liking to rubbing shoulders with the all-powerful, starting with Al Thani and repeating it with Donald. A leader turned subordinate who thought no one would stop him. If José María García were still on air, he would have enjoyed the character, as he did with leaders of similar caliber, but from another era. In a single late-night broadcast, he would call him a lamp-lighter hugger, a go-between, and a leech. After the last World Cup ended, he accelerated his drift from an explicit obsession to “unlock the commercial potential” of FIFA (of football?). The language is revealing, the World Cup was no longer a competition to protect, but a commodity still insufficiently exploited. A global platform susceptible to being sliced and shared with the American friend’s family (the same one who neither cares about it nor understands it).
In few areas can Europe be such a solid and indisputable global beacon as in football
Surprisingly, right at that moment, UEFA appeared: “Enough is enough” (just saying enough is a weak term for such an explicit stance). A 55 to 0. A resounding thrashing. All of Europe against a guy who thought he presided over an autocracy. Football belongs to the fans. UEFA has drawn the red line, with all its flaws, because its president is not a white dove either; with its political balances, questionable leaders, dark areas, and a history that also does not allow it to give too many lessons in purity. Federations are instruments of power and, too often, scenes of malpractice, but they remain the main trunk of the sport.
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The pyramid may be poorly governed, but it still has roots. A private company only has shareholders, federations have hundreds of thousands of members; their directors could not be so far removed from them. The European position is based on a conviction: in Europe, sport is not just any industry, it is subject to the laws of the European Union, which protects it as a social, educational, and cultural element. Sport is part of our heritage as a continent.
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UEFA has said no. Not because it is morally immaculate, but because someone has to remind that football does not belong to those who sign the contracts, it belongs to those who play it and keep making it great. If UEFA had not stood firm, it would have lost the moral and sporting leadership it must exercise. In few areas can Europe be such a solid, strategic, and indisputable global beacon as in football. Without Europe, there is no World Cup.
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