The power politics of Gianni Infantino

The leaders of soccer in Europe stood around the marble-floored lobby of a Hyatt hotel in Kiev, Ukraine, last month, trading gossip about one of their former colleagues: FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

Infantino had worked for UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, for nearly two decades, ultimately serving as the organisation’s equivalent of a chief executive. Then, in 2016, he became UEFA’s hand-picked candidate for his current role, the most powerful job in the sport. But two years later, the warm words and good feelings that had trailed Infantino as he left UEFA’s lakeside headquarters near Geneva to run FIFA have all but evaporated.

In recent months, Infantino has rankled peers, colleagues and even some of his supporters as he has tried to push through major changes to the game, proposing new tournaments that would remake the international schedule. He has offended supporters of women’s soccer by attending a match in Tehran from which women were barred, and he has angered African officials with moves they felt were designed to hamstring a Moroccan bid to host the 2026 World Cup.

In fact, despite a seemingly endless string of public appearances and globe-trotting the past two years, Infantino remains an enigma: a workaholic administrator who has overseen the repair of FIFA’s most serious financial and operational problems, but one whose rush to change the basic structure of the sport has annoyed enough constituencies that his re-election to a second term next year remains in the balance.

So when Infantino, 48, touched down in Kiev for the Champions League final last month, weeks away from opening his first World Cup as FIFA president, it was amid a cloud of political turmoil, rising anger and warnings even from those who know him best.

“He needs to slow down,” said Evelina Christillin, a member of the FIFA Council from Italy, who has been largely supportive of his presidency. “I’m a close friend of Gianni Infantino. I’ve known him for 20 years. I really have a lot of admiration for him. But still sometimes he can be a fiery southern Italian.”

Making a motion as if pulling up a car’s hand brake, a soccer official who has known Infantino for years explained how, during his time at UEFA, leaders there were able to bring out the best in Infantino while checking him when his bold plans threatened riskier outcomes.

Now, the official said, that hand brake is off.

A RESISTANCE GROWS

Those who know him best describe Infantino, the Swiss son of southern Italian immigrants, as a tireless bureaucrat whose relentlessness is matched only by his ambition. They saw those qualities, and the pitfalls that come with them, in abundance this year when tensions flared at a FIFA board meeting in Bogotá, Colombia.

At that meeting, Infantino stunned members of FIFA’s ruling council by telling them he had received a $25 billion offer for two new tournaments — a tempting payday but one that would force major changes on the professional game. FIFA’s board rejected his appeal to push through a quick deal, citing concerns about scheduling but also the confidentiality clauses that, Infantino said, barred him from revealing the identities of the investors even to soccer’s top leaders.

Around that time, African officials complained that FIFA was showing a bias against Morocco’s campaign for the 2026 World Cup, but an effort to get FIFA to strip Infantino’s hand-picked committee of the right to eliminate a bid if it didn’t meet technical standards failed. After the meeting, a senior African committee member sat forlornly and made dark predictions that FIFA had stacked the deck against Morocco in favor of the billions of dollars in revenue guaranteed by the North Americans.

Longtime members of FIFA’s board described the scenes in Bogotá as unlike anything they had witnessed at any previous meetings, a debate that devolved into a rebellion.

The German soccer federation president Reinhard Grindel, an outspoken member of the council, fumed on the sidelines of the meeting, furious that Infantino had barely spoken with him.

“He doesn’t want to hear any opinions,” Grindel said at the time.

Infantino declined requests to be interviewed for this article. He would agree to respond only to questions emailed to him, though The New York Times was among the news organisations invited to a June 4 briefing with him in Zurich.

Asked about the resistance he had confronted as he embarked on his mission to remake the world game, Infantino wrote in an email that he underestimated just how resistant the organisation would be to change, even after the scandal-plagued era of his predecessor, Sepp Blatter, who was forced to relinquish the presidency in 2015.

“No matter how much I prepared myself to face an atmosphere of reluctance, the level of mistrust I encountered around FIFA, and even within the organisation, was unbelievable,” Infantino wrote. “At that time, the institution’s reputation had really hit rock bottom: Anything involving FIFA was soaked in presumption of guilt; anything you could say or propose was met with suspicion. It is not easy to accomplish things in an environment like that. For several months, this was a huge and constant obstacle. It still is, to a certain degree.”

Christillin agreed, adding that convincing a membership as diverse as FIFA’s to change requires deft handling. “When you are depending on 211 votes you are not that free, of course,” she said. “All kinds of reforms have to be taken with caution.”

Weeks before the World Cup, Infantino called off an emergency board meeting he had hastily arranged to try to persuade members to accept the mysterious investment offer, perhaps deciding that another rebuke, even in private, would have been akin to a vote of no confidence a year before his planned campaign for re-election.

Asked directly about the scale of the opposition to his plans, Infantino wrote, “Disagreement is a natural consequence of being an open organisation.”

Infantino’s critics see it otherwise. They say their resistance is a bulwark against an executive who won the presidency by promising to quadruple the money FIFA distributes to member nations, including many who derive most if not all of their revenue from FIFA, and is now focused only on finding the cash to fulfill that pledge before he must answer for it to voters.

“He made a lot of promises without having enough money, and now additional tournaments and additional competitions should bring the revenues,” Grindel said. “I think this is the wrong way.”

REFORM, ONLY SO MUCH

Before he became president, Infantino was part of a group tasked with implementing governance reforms at FIFA in the wake of the 2015 corruption scandal — allowing it, in FIFA’s words, to become a “modern, trusted and professional” organisation. In the new structure, the role of the president would be limited in favor of an empowered secretary-general who would act as a chief executive — a role some say suits Infantino’s skills perfectly.

That has not happened. As president, Infantino has overseen the biggest decisions facing the organisation while his secretary-general, Fatma Samoura, a former UN official from Senegal, has largely been marginalised.

Samoura was not made available for interview. But Miguel Maduro, FIFA’s former governance chief, said the secondary role she has assumed is a direct result of Infantino’s having near total discretion on staffing matters.

When Infantino hired Maduro in 2016, the move was hailed as a sign of a reformed FIFA. Infantino tasked Maduro, a former advocate general at the European Court of Justice, with leading an independent governance committee that would, among other things, vet senior officials for FIFA posts.

In the ensuing months, however, that independence caused problems for Infantino. Russian soccer officials complained Maduro’s group had declined to clear a Russian deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko, to run for re-election to the FIFA Council. Asia’s soccer confederation balked at his requests to increase the number of women in top positions, and African officials complained when they learned his committee might have had concerns about a confederation election.

Less than a year into his tenure, Maduro was preparing to board a flight to Bahrain for Infantino’s second congress when the FIFA president’s chief of staff called tell him not to bother to attend. His mandate was not being renewed, because “politics” had made his position untenable.

“They feel they are accountable to the political cartel that dominates FIFA but not to the outside world, not to public opinion, not to the media, not to the fans,” Maduro said of Infantino’s leadership team. “Ultimately Infantino’s choice was one of political survival.”

Joseph Weiler, a New York University law professor who was part of Maduro’s team, was among a group of officials who quit in protest. Weiler submitted an ethics complaint against Infantino and other senior officials, charging that they had improperly interfered with the committee’s work. The results of the investigation have not been made public.

FIFA said it does not comment on ethics committee investigations. Infantino has been investigated and cleared in the past following a complaint related to the use of a private jet and a visit with his mother to see Pope Francis at the Vatican.

While Infantino took office declaring an end to FIFA’s era of excess — first-class air travel, five-star hotels and $300,000 salaries for top officials — turning words into deeds has proved more difficult than he imagined. Some FIFA Council members objected to a drastic pay cut, and FIFA had to settle at a marginally smaller figure — $250,000 a year.

Still, Infantino has his defenders. Christillin, who said, “I think we are still paid too much,” noted that Infantino had dragged FIFA up from what she described as “the less-than-zero” position it was in when he took office.

The organisation’s reputation will take years to heal, though Infantino insists FIFA has turned a financial corner — this week it will announce revenue of $6 billion for the four-year cycle leading to the Russia World Cup — and he has purged about a quarter of the organisation’s staff.

Sponsors in the West remain wary, however. FIFA has not signed a new sponsor from North America or Western Europe since Infantino’s election victory; its most recent partners have largely been drawn from China, and a further boost is expected from Saudi Arabia, whose growing interest in the game has unsettled some regional leaders.

And for all his talk of improving FIFA’s image, Infantino has found himself at the center of several controversies that could have been avoided. At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, for example, he visited and posed for smiling photos with the head of Brazil’s soccer body, Marco Polo del Nero, even though del Nero was wanted by the US Justice Department on corruption and racketeering charges.

Then, in March, amid global condemnation of Russia’s role in the deaths of civilians in Syria, Infantino agreed to be filmed playing soccer with the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, inside the Kremlin, a photo opportunity that some of Infantino’s aides had advised against.

POLITICS, ALWAYS POLITICS

In recent weeks, Infantino has felt just how treacherous the political waters of global soccer can be.

The discussions about an expanded Club World Cup — including the secret talks with investors led by Japan’s SoftBank — have even seeped into the bidding for FIFA’s crown jewel, the World Cup. Had those proposals received the public backing from North American officials, the region’s bid for the 2026 World Cup might have lost critical European support.

Going against Infantino carries its own risks, though. From his perch at FIFA House, in the hills above Zurich, Infantino still wields considerable influence inside FIFA, and he controls hundreds of millions of dollars in highly sought-after development financing — money that makes up the entire budget for many national federations. The men and women trading gossip in the hotel lobby in Kiev last month surely understand that political calculus.

For now, without a serious challenger or a mortal self-inflicted wound, Infantino is in position to retain the FIFA presidency when the election is held in June 2019. Until then, his battles will continue, and his opponents will continue to fume.

“You cannot expect to choose when there will be an important decision to be made or an important discussion to be held,” Infantino said. “It is what makes the job difficult, but also quite fascinating.”

© 2018 New York Times News Service