Lack of preparation time means that most competing nations in Qatar will not have had the chance to try fresh faces or tacticsIf only the World Cup could be about the football. Last week, Fifa sent a letter to the football authorities of the 32 competing nations to urge them to “focus on the football” and to ensure it is not “dragged into every ideological or political battle”. Which is fine so long as you are not gay, a woman, a migrant labourer, a believer in democracy or a person with a conscience – or indeed any of the people Gianni Infantino claimed to be in his risibly hypocritical speech on Saturday.This is, of course, the same Fifa president who...
Major sporting events need patience and time. Shortening the cycle would confirm that the game really is all about moneyThere has never been so much football. Every day, someone somewhere plays someone else, and you can follow it all over the world on any device – live, on demand, or just the highlights, on YouTube, DAZN or Twitter. There’s more to come; soon the Champions League will host a hundred more games a year. Our collective attention, as research calls it, is declining in the process, but it’s hard to stop the trend.What Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, and his adviser Arsène Wenger now have in mind could finally lead to overconsumption. They want to hold the World Cup every two...
Infantino is threatened by resistance within his own ranks and political volatility worldwide – not least in the ramifications of a vote to host the 2026 tournamentThe World Cup in Russia has sailed into view with a new Fifa captain at the helm, two and a half years since Sepp Blatter’s presidency crashed on the rocks of corruption and ethics breaches. Gianni Infantino seemed a callow, unlikely president when he was elevated to succeed the banned Blatter in February 2016 as, his tie slightly askew, he tapped his heart in wonderment at winning the vote of the Fifa congress.Yet the better clue to how Infantino would operate has turned out not to be that moment of youthful elation but the...
Ruling body still seems to care more about ambush marketing and trademarks infringement than racism and homophobiaIt is almost two years since Fifa wound up its anti‑racism task force, declaring it had “completely” fulfilled its mission and was therefore dissolved. That a banana should have been thrown on to a Russian pitch eight minutes into a Champions League game a mere three days after this dissolution was obviously unfortunate; that the banana should have remained there until the 15th minute arguably began to look like carelessness.Ditto news that racist and homophobic chants have become more common in Russia in the season building up to the coming World Cup, according to a joint report by the antidiscrimination network Fare and the...
Global political turmoil might be set to wreck Russia’s World Cup but, fear not, Gianni Infantino won’t take his eye off the ball and has some interesting other ideas for us allTwo months out from a World Cup hosted by an aspirant rogue state, what is on the mind of deeply scrutable Fifa president Gianni Infantino?Is it the sense of gathering storm in international relations, at the very heart of which is the tournament’s host nation? Is it the mounting air of absurdity that might attend an event hosted by a Russian leader seemingly bent on playing the pariah, who is engaged in gruesome and increasingly provocative proxy conflict in Syria, and who was at the weekend accused of tampering...