A wounded man is on the loose. Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA since 2016, is going through the worst days since taking office, and his recent actions have unleashed a tsunami in the global football world with unpredictable consequences. His misstep with the privatization of the World Cup, the furious reaction of his enemies, especially Ceferin, and the prospect of his reelection represent a boiling cauldron of power in early August.
It is necessary to place the character, just in case. Infantino has already made some shady moves with his reelection in mind. Shortly before being appointed in 2015, FIFA imposed a self-limitation of 12 years as the maximum time a president could hold office. Infantino took office in 2016, was reelected in 2019 and in 2023. If he were to follow his own statutes, he could not run for reelection next year, as he could only serve until 2028 at most. Nothing of the sort. In a press conference in 2022, he stated that the first three years (from 2016 to 2019) did not count. Why? He explained it as he explains things: "The mandate that began in 2016 was a special three-year mandate that simply completed the one Blatter had. It was not a full mandate. Therefore, for the purposes of term limits, my first full term began in 2019."
This is his way of self-legitimizing his candidacy for reelection on March 18 at the FIFA Congress in Rabat. And on that day, in that vote, one must look for explanations for the behavior of a wounded animal he is displaying these days. Yesterday, the British newspaper The Times, the same one that exclusively published his plans to privatize the World Cup, reported that Infantino had offered Morocco the hosting rights for the 2030 World Cup final in exchange for securing their support, which is tantamount to securing the support of all African countries in that reelection. A FIFA spokesperson would later deny it, but the doubt is legitimate.
"Now more dangerous than ever, he is capable of anything," analyzed yesterday afternoon a source who has worked for many years in the upper echelons of FIFA and knows well how the levers of that power work, even during Infantino's era. The Swiss leader observes around him how the initiative to hand over competition rights to investment funds related to Donald Trump has blown up the status quo maintained by his many enemies, given the controversies of his tenure. For instance, his alliance with the U.S. president and his staunch defense of Qatar as a guarantor of human rights when hosting the previous World Cup.
Just a couple of weeks ago, he was confident of being the sole candidate to lead FIFA, but today he is aware that UEFA is trying to put together an alternative candidacy. The distribution of votes in the FIFA Congress is as follows: there are a total of 211 votes, with 106 needed to win the elections. While there is no voting discipline by geographic zones, those from the same continent tend to vote similarly. Those currently against Infantino, as they have made public, are Europe (55 votes) and CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and the Caribbean), which has 41 votes. Together, they total 96 votes. Therefore, it is logical for Infantino to seek the support of the African CAF (54 votes) and Asia (47). That adds up to 101 votes in total. The first group would need 10 more votes for those 106. The second group, if it forms, would need just five more. Where do these votes come from? Oceania (11) and South America (10). The math is not that simple, there are always unpredictable votes, but that is the trend.
The fear of losing power is something that, history tells us, leads to the most unpredictable behaviors. And Infantino is not even trying to hide it. That's why yesterday, precisely in Rabat, at the office complex named after Mohammed VI, he met with several of his collaborators, those who remain loyal to him, not all of them. After seven hours, he left the premises ignoring the dozens of journalists waiting for him.
The fact that this meeting took place in Morocco, that the venue for the Congress next March is Morocco, and that the choice of the venue for the 2030 World Cup final, which Spain aspires to, specifically the Bernabéu, partly thanks to an agreement between Infantino and Florentino Pérez, also includes the largest football stadium in the world under construction in Casablanca, all these facts together are causing nervousness in the Spanish Federation. For now, they remain silent, but they sense that nothing that is happening benefits them.