Football – How FIFA boss Gianni Infantino gets everyone to serve him

Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar: Dazzling figures in world football are not only united by their global reach. The triumvirate has long since been harnessed to the desert cart. The Argentine world champion Messi is leading the way as a well-paid advertising ambassador for the “Visit Saudi” campaign, the Portuguese world star Ronaldo and Brazil’s superstar Neymar have long been kicking for fantastic pay in the kingdom, which is on the verge of its greatest success: 211 member associations of the world association Fifa The 2030 and 2034 World Championships will be awarded en bloc on Wednesday. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will be the hosts in 2030, and Saudi Arabia will be the sole host for 2034.

The virtual meeting, scheduled from 3 p.m., will produce a unanimous vote, with confirmation by acclamation. The agenda only includes determining the hosts – not choosing or voting. The 2027 Women’s World Cup was awarded in person at the Fifa Congress in Bangkok when two candidates were up for election: Brazil and the European bid from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. After a somewhat democratic procedure, the South Americans emerged victorious with 119:78 votes.

But when it comes to awarding a men’s World Cup, better deals can be made with backroom deals. FIFA President Gianni Infantino in particular senses big money in the country, which has almost a fifth of the world’s oil reserves. In order to maximize profits, the Swiss sought to join forces with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman early on. The monarchy has already concluded 900 sponsorship contracts in world sport. Many of these are paid for by the Saudi investment fund PIF, which is worth an estimated 650 billion euros to implement Vision 2030. The company Aramco, a Saudi Arabian oil production company, which has also been the main sponsor of Ffia since this year, plays a crucial role. Tennis, golf or Formula 1 are all well and good for the desire for attention, but nothing fascinates on an emotional level more than football.

In order to award a final tournament to this very rich region after the World Cup in Qatar two years ago, FIFA reversed its own reforms after the 2015 scandal. After the freestyle of Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, there should never be a double award again. But the Fifa Council seems to be subservient to Infantino. In October 2023, the 36-member committee unanimously decided to combine the bid from Spain, Portugal and Morocco with that from Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina to form one bid for the 2030 World Cup – three games, including the opening game, will be played in South America. Further changes to the statutes were made for the FIFA Congress in May to allow for double awarding. The final decision was to vote for both tournaments as a package.

DFB President Bernd Neuendorf has confirmed that he has approved all three measures. “Why play opposition that would be completely doomed to failure?” The nine European members of the Fifa Council played vicarious agents because the 2030 World Cup will essentially be held on European soil. Under Infantino, FIFA is “degenerating more and more into an autocratic one-man show, and the DFB is ducking away and criticizing the fan alliance “Our Curve”.

The DFB also accepts that German professional football will take a knee-bent again in ten years because games have to be played in winter, which will particularly disrupt the European calendar. In the Fifa evaluation report, the date is deliberately left open, but the climatic conditions do not allow it to be held in the summer.

The allegations of human rights violations, which have been well documented by Human Rights Watch, are even more serious. It’s about women’s rights, forced labor, wage theft or deaths of workers. An apparently falsified FIFA evaluation process will cause “unimaginable human costs, including negative impacts on migrant workers and their families,” warned Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, as 11 stadiums need to be rebuilt. The world association counters that the World Cup could serve as a “catalyst for some of the current and future reforms” and that Saudi Arabia is committed to adhering to a wide range of standards on human rights issues. An argument that Neuendorf also used. A rejection would be “purely symbolic politics”; it would be better to accompany the reform processes.