Infantino’s exit can’t come soon enough

There is a big London Derby on Sunday (Arsenal-Chelsea), and the weekend schedule also features marquee matches in Turkey (Feherbahce-Besiktas) and the Netherlands (Ajax-PSV Eindhoven), as well as a showdown between the Italian teams with the last four Scudetti between them (Inter Milan-Napoli).

Then there’s the Under-20 Women’s World Cup, which is set to kick off in Poland (Canada plays England on Saturday at 11:00 a.m.).

And yet, clouding it all — and the world of football is a massive thing to overshadow — is the figure of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who suddenly finds himself facing a protracted legal battle over his scheme to sell off the World Cup’s commercial rights.

Specifically, UEFA — the sport’s governing body in Europe — is “preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino…for criminal mismanagement under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code.” So reads its recent filing in a Florida court.

Infantino has responded to the allegations by furiously counter-alleging that UEFA and his many other detractors have embarked on a witch hunt. Given his proximity to the current U.S. administration, which in itself is enough to raise some serious questions, it’s an unsurprising reaction.

The Oval Office playbook, which is quite familiar by now, advises its executive to characterize serious criticism as persecution, as inquisitions as morally flawed as paranoid quests to expose all manner of sorcery and spells.

“… little more than press releases in further support of a [smear] campaign against FIFA and its leadership,” is how his lawyers put it. Unfortunately, that’s now the narrative making the rounds.

Where actual games should be generating stories, the major item of the weekend is Infantino’s pushback. And it now has a supporting headline, courtesy of Samuel Eto’o.

In an interview with L’Equipe, published Thursday, the former Barcelona striker and current head of the Cameroon Football Federation urged his African football peers to support the embattled FIFA president.

“Mr. Infantino has helped our continent,” he said. “He has helped our federations develop much more quickly, and we have to recognize that.”

For the sake of argument, let’s take Eto’o at his word. Let’s assume that a benevolent, Infantino-led organization has been, and would continue to be, Africa’s surest route to equitable treatment within FIFA. And not just Africa, but South America, too, and also parts of Asia.

It’s the same argument, incidentally, that kept former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter in his post longer than he should have been. More pertinently, it’s the same position used by the White House to keep the United States in the sort of ongoing schism it uses to its benefit.

Essentially, it’s a strategy that plays the Global South off against the North, and UEFA in particular. That there is certainly some historical, and ongoing, truth to the fissure in general terms only makes it that more effective, if also similarly cynical.

So some free advice to UEFA, to the North and Central Americans and to the majority of Asian federations that want to see the back of Infantino: accompany your movement for FIFA reform with meaningful guarantees that southern members of the football community will not be left behind.

Infantino, after all, as a Swiss national, is only the Global South’s great champion because he says he is.

What’s crucial here is that the anti-Infantino alliance uses its momentum to oust him as quickly as possible.

From shady dealings with Saudi Arabian capital to licking the boots of the Oval Office occupant; from direct interference in World Cup discipline to treating FIFA as a personal investment vehicle, this is an individual whose exit from the sport is increasingly urgent.

While most people would experience enough personal shame to step aside, that cannot be expected to be the scenario here.

There are moral reasons why Infantino should be kept as far away from football as possible, and there are quite possibly some legal ones as well.

But from a purely practical, purely sporting perspective, Infantino must be removed so everything he’s overshadowing can come back into view.

jerradpeters@proton.me

@jerrad.peters@bsky.social