FIFA President is again in the eye of a controversy after the double whammy he received recently – a call to appear before the US Congress over his ties with President Donald Trump as well as an outpouring of criticism over FIFA’s alleged plans to partially sell the commercials rights for the World Cup tournament to private investors.
The troubles come for the FIFA President a week after the World Cup final and mounting criticism for the overturning of the suspension of after he received a red card. The controversy grew after Trump himself revealed that he had reached out to Infantino on the issue.
Here we take a look at the two controversies Infantino finds himself in:
Trump ties under the lens
An investigation has been launched into Infantino by Jamie Raskin, who is the top Democrat on the US House Judiciary committee, over his ties with Trump and the US government.
Raskin sent a letter to Infantino on Sunday, which called the global governing body of football to provide documents or communications related to payments, gifts, or benefits it has provided either to the US President himself or his associates. The letter has also called for the visitor logs of the body’s office in Trump Tower.
The House judiciary committee has also asked Infantino to appear before it in a transcribed interview.
“[Y]our election as Fifa president was supposed to mark a red-card break from a decades-long culture of corruption and scandals that dressed down world soccer’s reputation,” Raskin wrote to Infantino in the letter, as per The Guardian. “Instead, at the start of your tenure, you dismantled Fifa’s ethical guardrails and disabled the organization’s ethics committee by pushing out most of its members. This lack of transparency and oversight has since paved the way for you to ingratiate yourself with the Trump administration via tactics that a New York University law professor and one of your former ethics committeemen described as ‘legal bribery’.”
“The most recent quid pro quo that Fifa and President Trump orchestrated is not a victimless crime. It hurts Americans. Fifa has taken its newfound favored status in the Trump administration as a sign that it may rip off its consumers, most notably, by employing illegal price-gouging and fraudulent sales tactics for the World Cup,” the letter further added.
FIFA planning to sell commercial rights of tournaments
The world footballing body has announced plans to sell non-controlling commercial rights of its tournaments, which includes its marquee World Cup, to private investors in order to bring in funds that it claims would help the development of the sport in its member nations.
However, this move has triggered a controversy, with Europe’s accusing FIFA of “attempting to sell the soul of football”.
FIFA is working with JP Morgan to set up a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FEE), which will sell a significant stake in the commercial rights of its tournaments to private investors.
The investment company Thrive Capital, which is leading the search for investors, was founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump son-in-law Jared.
Miffed with the move, UEFA said, “This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” adding, “Uefa takes it extremely seriously. So should every national football association. So should every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, supporters, governments and everyone who cares about the future of the game. The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade – especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not Fifa’s to sell.”
