Under-fire FIFA chief Gianni Infantino has the explicit support of Donald Trump but is still in his post regardless.
Infantino is clinging to his role despite the widespread backlash to his plans to sell a significant percentage of the commercial rights to the World Cup to private investors. Associates of Trump were reportedly lined up but resistance from around the world and within FIFA itself halted the sell-off in its tracks.
Gianni Infantino set to play his other trump card
Waving enormous stacks of cash under the noses of struggling federations was supposed to win a vote on Infantino’s plans for the World Cup. When it comes to protecting his throne, he has other tools in the box.
“Gianni Infantino has reportedly expressed a willingness to support another expansion of the World Cup,” reports the Mirror.
“It has been suggested that Infantino would be in favour of the tournament increasing from 48 to 64 teams, amid ongoing uncertainty around his future in the job.
“Infantino travelled to Colombia on Friday to attend the inauguration of the country’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, where discussions over a potential expansion of the World Cup are said to have taken place.”
Expansion of the men’s World Cup from 48 teams to 64, and indeed from 32 teams to 48, is motivated by matters beyond the sheer commercial weight of a larger tournament or any paper-thin notion that it welcomes more federation in the name of growing the sport.
Each FIFA Member Association holds an equal vote. Major changes are passed on that basis, which is vulnerable to disproportionately incentivising smaller federations with, say £30 million, and to complications like bloc voting.
With 211 members around the world, FIFA’s president would effectively be saying to a significant proportion of his electorate that he is opening the World Cup to them for the first time.
It’s difficult to vote against that, and it’s difficult to vote against the president who gives it his backing, no matter the extent to which he’s abdicating his responsibility towards a sport for which he shows little regard.
The fly in the ointment from Infantino’s point of view is that a 64-team World Cup can only be a meaningful pillar of his manifesto if some of those teams are European.
As it stands, the shelving of his plans have not yet stood down UEFA’s threat to boycott FIFA competitions – the European governing body demanded that future assurances be put in place and appears to smell blood in the big office.
UEFA is not fighting alone but even if an expanded World Cup tempts away its allies, even if all 156 non-UEFA nations voted for and then with Infantino, Europe can kill the World Cup at a stroke.