An analyst Friday slammed FIFA president Gianni Infantino and his relationship with President Donald Trump ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
The Guardian's Marina Hyde wrote an opinion piece describing the number of problematic moments around Infantino, "Trump’s dictator-curious protege," and "FIFA's recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies." Infantino last week gave Trump an inaugural peace award, which has now led to calls for an ethics investigation.
"FIFA president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier," Hyde wrote. "He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms FIFA is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar."
The event is also expected to cost cities millions to cover a budget shortfall.
"Furthermore, this World Cup is already shaping up to be the sort of reciprocally abusive arrangement we’ve seen when the tournament previously tipped up in non-democracies, Trump can use it to threaten Democrat mayors with loss of city hosting rights, while Infantino can charge genuinely crazy money and have FIFA run the entire secondary ticketing/scalping market without interference. Everyone’s a winner, as long as they hold all the cards," Hyde wrote.
The writer questioned the dynamics between Infantino and Trump, and how the football boss has appeared often at the White House and even Trump's Middle East peace summit in Egypt.
"Orange-coated faux fans are positively encouraged these days, but only if they come in the sole form of US president Donald Trump, whose bromance with Infantino has been one of the more mesmerisingly weird developments of his presidency," Hyde added.
"But then, just as power-playing moguls place themselves on each other’s company boards, so autocrats love other autocrats," Hyde wrote. "Back in January, many of us were still vaguely startled to see Gianni given a great seat at Trump’s inauguration, barely two rows behind the tech oligarchs, where he was able to laugh uproariously at the bit of the speech where Trump announced he’d be renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. (Just a little niggle between FIFA co-hosts.) But now that we’ve seen Infantino pop up everywhere from Gaza peace conferences to regular turns in the Oval Office, it almost feels strange when he isn’t part of Trump’s malarial travelling court – the Dontourage, if you will."