Infantino cashing in on World Cup: is football’s soul for sale? – The Latest

0:11This is Infantino's FIFA and this is the way that Infantino believes that the sport should be run. And really at the World Cup you felt there was money flying. Wherever you went there's something nebulous about FIFA. Infantino himself is effectively homeless. He flies around the world on a private jet glad-handing dignitaries. Where do you catch him? He's rattled. You can tell that he knows that lots of people out there don't buy what he's selling. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Half. So less than a fortnight after the conclusion of this year's World Cup, which took place in the United States, in Canada and in Mexico, FIFA's president Johnny Infantino is looking to cash in on football's new global popularity.

0:57Paul McInnes, you're a reporter for The Guardian who's been covering this story for us. What is the sort of scope of what he's putting forward in terms of this new financial model? There's two ways you can answer that question. The first is to say the scope is a repositioning of FIFA's functions. So it's going to take all its commercial operations and the part of FIFA that organises and runs World Cups to centrally organise everything, make everything more efficient, put best of class people in there and ramp up revenues even further than the 15 billion that they've taken over the last four year cycle.

1:32That's one way of looking at it. That sounds like the press release. The other way of looking at it is nobody really knows because it was this announcement which FIFA made yesterday, they were bounced into doing it by reporting in the Times and the Financial Times. and the details are limited to the extent of a press release that they've put out. And so we don't really know what will happen. We don't really know the rules which will guide what happens or the process by which we get to there. What we do know, however, is that indisputably up to 25 % of this organisation will be sold on to private investors.

2:09We do know a little bit about the people that might be involved in that private equity and there is the surname Kushner involved, although not the Kushner that you might be thinking of, Jared, Trump's son-in-law, but another one. It's Joshua, not Jared. But, and I got a phone call very quickly after the news yesterday saying, we want you to point out that not all Kushners are the same. And this Kushner is a democratic supporting Kushner with a long track record of investment in entirely ethical tech properties. Right. So don't worry. Okay. But I think this is why these two ways of looking at it becomes interesting.

2:47Because if you take it at face value, fine. But then if you look at everything else that's been going on with Infantino and his proximity to the Trump family, in particular, not just Donald Trump, but Jared Kushner, and you kind of think, well, it looks like there might be something dodgy going on here. But we can't know whether there's anything dodgy or not, because nothing's been published about how this thing will actually work and any transparency as to what will actually happen. Yeah, that's really interesting and much more to be reported on and hopefully that will emerge in the coming weeks.

3:19But there has been an immediate backlash to this, you know, this idea that this is selling the soul of football to private equity. It reminded me a bit of the European Super League, which was announced in 2021, which was this idea that there would be a separate league that would break away as a rival to existing UEFA competitions, which would obviously have huge implications for the Premier League and for the Champions League that was met with such backlash that it was scrapped kind of within days. tell me about some of the backlash that we're already seeing because it's coming not just from fans but also from other football organizations yes we are seeing backlash and we are seeing UEFA stepping up to speak out against this UEFA organizes European football UEFA's nations competing nations like England Spain France but also the clubs that play within its framework generate pretty much 90 % of all the revenue in world football.

4:18They are incredibly important to any project like the World Cup. If UEFA is in opposition to something, it matters. However, the complaints, while strongly worded, they have said that a bridge has been crossed about changing the nature of the game, who owns the game, and that nobody should own the game. And these are words that will resonate with many people, but the action to back that up is not apparent. And we have seen this before from UEFA. Two times in the past year, Gianni Infantino turned up late to his own annual congress. He kept people waiting in Paraguay for about two hours. People walked out.

4:55UEFA released a statement saying this was awfully disrespectful. And then they walked it back two days later. And then they've also more recently made a complaint about the World Cup and the decision to overturn the red card awarded to Fallow and Balogun. which for many people is another Rubicon crossing event in football because... Who is the US star striker and that was after a Trump intervention that was hugely controversial. And I guess the problem from a fan perspective here is the ESL, the European Super League, which was very quickly scrapped, involved people's beloved clubs, which meant that there were protests outside the stadiums for those clubs that it would involve.

5:37But when you're talking about a competition on the scale of the World Cup, that's slightly different. It means that the fan backlash might not have as much clout. Absolutely. I think that's a really key observation. I think it was the images of the fans, particularly the fans standing outside Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea fans. It looked like there was almost like a riot going to start because of it. And I think that rattled people. But let's not also forget that Boris Johnson at that time said he would drop a legislative bomb on any of the clubs who look to leave English football to part in the Super League.

6:10And they could have done that. They could have worked some kind of solution. So there was a threat of action behind it. But I take your point very much about there's something nebulous about FIFA. Infantino himself is effectively homeless. He doesn't really live in any one country. He flies around the world on a private jet, glad-handing dignitaries. yeah and where do you catch him where do you get him even journalists 20 years standing who've been working on FIFA corruption find it impossible to get anything out of Infantino to get him in a space where you can actually challenge him on what he's doing yeah because this isn't the first time that Infantino has tried to bring in some private equity to FIFA he tried and failed in 2018 but in this instance, his sell is this would more than double FIFA's revenue, which would have huge global implications for global football.

7:01So therefore, some members might support this, and the deadline to vote on it is relatively short. So is there any mechanism by which this could be stopped? And are there people who would back this model? I think they say something about the art of politics is the ability to count. Yeah. And Gianni Infantino has always been able to count. Right. In the press release, it was the suggestion of a different way of approving, that it would rather than needing an approval by the FIFA Congress, it would actually need an expression of interest from a majority of FIFA's 211 member associations. And given that he already has 200 associations backing him, this is Guardian reporting, 200 associations backing his return, it's almost guaranteed he will have more than 110 he needs who will want that money.

7:51But it's interesting to note about Infantino, growing the amount of money for nations has always been the promise. On the day he was elected, he said, I will get you more money. And he was always delivered on that. And he looks to be set to continue as president until 2031. And finding new ways to do that, which is obviously what's in the news. But he obviously has been a little bit personally stung by the criticism directed very specifically at him during this year's World Cup tournament. There was this very bizarre Instagram post that was quite Trumpian in its style, sort of hitting back at that criticism.

8:28do you think I mean it sounds like from your previous answer probably not that the backlash to this latest move might mean that a challenger comes forward ahead of next year's elections for FIFA president I don't think it's impossible you could have a stalking horse but I think Invantina's power base has always been inside inside Africa and I think there's at least 85 votes there so that's going to make it you know if you come with a European candidate you're struggling from the beginning. So I think it's going to be hard, but I think a protest could be made. I think it's really interesting. And I took great satisfaction from reading that Instagram post because I'm only minor league in terms of Infantino baiting.

9:07There's people who dedicate a lot more time to it, but he's rattled. You can tell that he knows that lots of people out there don't buy what he's selling. And I think that's what's changed. The curtains come back a little bit. The cash is still there. The offer's still there. The ambition is very much still there. Yeah. But has the kind of the theatre fallen away a little bit? Yeah. And which speaks to something about the state of the game more broadly. I mean, there were so many criticisms about this year's World Cup, the overturning of a red card because of a Trump request, the hydration breaks that were sort of the official line was that this was about, you know, players playing in hot countries.

9:46But, you know, unofficially there were suggestions that this was about increasing advertising revenue. What do you think all this says about the state of the game? I don't think it says much. I think it says about Amfantino and I think it says he is very, very focused on generating money. The irony of the hydration breaks is that, you know, he took one and turned it back on us. Last year at the Club World Cup where people were suffering in the heat, we were reporting about how this wasn't appropriate, that people should not be playing high-end athletic sport in 30 degrees heat. And they went, all right then, they won't, but we'll just sell ads on the back of it and then you'll be even more angry, you know.

10:22So the people are saying about this World Cup and I think this is what's driving part of it, that they left money on the table, that despite all the things they did and really at the World Cup, you felt there was money flying wherever you went. Yeah, absolutely. But they could have done more. They could have got a bigger TV deal. They could have got bigger TV deals in China and India. They could have sold more merch. They could have, you know, actually the dynamic pricing on the tickets worked really well. They could have gone higher, you know, all that sort of stuff. This is Infantino's FIFA and this is the way that Infantino believes that the sport should be run.

10:55and you know it's so close to how many people within the game also think the game is we're on it's sometimes difficult to see the gap but I think people are seeing the gap now and part of it is about it's about transparency you've got to be able to say why you're doing it how you're going to do it and bring people with you and he can FIFA under Infantino continually choose to ignore pretty much everybody outside the president's office and I think that's where we're going to start to see more friction. Okay, well it sounds like this story is far from over. Paul, thank you so much for your time.

11:28Pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Paul McInnes, Guardian reporter who's been covering this story. Keep up with all his reporting over at theguardian.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was produced by Angus Neal. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The executive producer was Zoe Hitch. And it was presented by me, Lucy Hoff.