…corruption.
Andrew Mangan is an Irish writer who covers Arsenal and European football and put down some thoughts on the axis of corruption Infantino/FIFA/Trump:
Inventing a nonsensical peace prize and a peace prize ceremony to placate Donald Trump after he didn’t get one from Nobel was, perhaps, the most obsequious piece of brown nosing I’ve ever seen. Weeks later, the recipient of this peace prize started an unnecessary war that continues to impact that region and the global economy. It’s like giving Jack the Ripper a Not a Murderer Prize before he says ‘Thank you very much, just off for an uneventful walk around Whitechapel for a bit!’.And sadly that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A FIFA chosen delegate, the best referee in Africa, is not allowed entry to the US because he has a name vaguely similar to someone on one of their watch-lists, and Infantino tells people to ‘chill and relax’. If you host a World Cup, surely it’s a prerequisite that the officials are allowed in to do their jobs. Infantino essentially said there’s nothing they could do, and made a banal point to a BBC journalist about how they couldn’t dictate to the UK government if they chose not to allow someone in for the Women’s World Cup in 2035. The logical conclusion of this is some other autocrat hosting the World Cup and to give his country a better chance of success, denying entry to the best players from elsewhere. It’s fine though, we should just chill and relax. Slippery slopes, and it just illustrates how craven and pathetic the FIFA President is, and by extension the people with profile who work for FIFA or are FIFA adjacent and say nothing.
Ticket prices through the roof, justified by supply and demand because of the American market, but which are as much as 10 times more expensive than Qatar. Let’s see how that manifests itself with empty seats during these group stages in an extended tournament nobody asked for and which undermines its sporting integrity. Fans being denied entry. Players being denied entry. Visas being cancelled. FIFA block booking hotels then cancelling them all because of a lack of demand. FIFA, as reported by The Athletic, taking offices in a Trump owned building but leaving them essentially vacant, a bribe by any other name.
I think it’s important to make the distinction between this US administration and the many US football fans who I know are appalled and horrified by so much of what has gone on, and continues to go on. Sport and politics have been mixed, there’s no escaping this unfortunate cocktail over the next few weeks, and I feel for them. But I want to make clear my contempt in this context is primarily focused on Infantino. We all know the kinds of politicians that exist, and not just in America, but if you choose you to make it your business to be their friends, and to hand-wave the harm they do for your own personal ambition, you ought to be judged by that choice.
Listening to other European podcasts, hosts are wondering how hard it was for the US to make Qatar look like a free, open and welcoming society. Apart from barring the Sudanese referee - one of the best in the game — there was a strip search of Senegalese players, team doctors, and other personnel denied entry, Iran’s players forced to fly to a third country each evening after they play.
Trump/MAGA is sullying the reputation of the U.S. in every imaginable way, but the World Cup is a huge international story and so far the lead story abroad is about how chaotic and corrupt the symbiotic foulness of Trump and Infantino has proved thus far.