Gianni Infantino, FIFA and FFE: The Inside Story with Martyn Ziegler

The journalist who broke the story joined The Fussball Channel.

The Times’ Chief Sports Reporter Martyn Ziegler joined Jan Åge Fjørtoft and Markus Fjørtoft to take us inside Gianni Infantino’s failed attempt to sell a stake in FIFA’s commercial and competition business, including the Men’s World Cup, to private investors.

We discuss how the story was uncovered, why the proposal unravelled, the unprecedented power struggle now taking place inside world football, whether Infantino can survive as FIFA president, and whether replacing him would actually change FIFA.

IN THIS EPISODE

• How Martyn Ziegler first discovered the secret FIFA proposal.

• What Gianni Infantino was trying to achieve with FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE).

• Why the proposal unravelled so quickly once it became public.

• The reported $40 million offer to FIFA member associations that supported the deal.

• Why Ziegler describes the current battle inside FIFA as an unprecedented “civil war”.

• The growing opposition to Infantino and whether he can survive as FIFA president.

• Who could potentially succeed Infantino.

• The bigger question: would replacing the president actually reform FIFA?

WATCH & LISTEN

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Apple Podcasts:Listen on Apple Podcasts

• Full Transcript

  00:00 — Markus:
  Hi, and welcome to The Fussball Channel. I'm your host Markus Fjørtoft and, as always, joined by co-host Jan Åge Fjørtoft.

  As the drama continues to unfold following Gianni Infantino's failed attempt to sell a stake in FIFA's commercial business, we are joined by the person who first broke the story, Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Reporter at The Times, who has been at the forefront of reporting ever since.

  Martyn, it's a great pleasure to have you on the show.

  00:31 — Martyn:
  Great to be with you both.

  00:34 — Markus:
  Before we get into the present state of things, I want to take us to the beginning, to that initial moment when you first heard about it. I would love to get a little insight into how that came about.

  00:47 — Martyn:
  Yeah, so I had a meeting with a trusted contact of mine. He said he wanted to talk about something, and then showed me a document which basically explained what was happening with this idea of selling off FIFA tournaments — in particular the Men's World Cup — to private investors, or a share, a stake, in this new company, this new enterprise.

  So that was the first I knew about it. I wasn't particularly surprised because we know back in 2018 Gianni Infantino tried to involve private investors — not for the World Cup, but with setting up a new Club World Cup. So, to me, it wasn't a huge surprise. But I thought, well, this is a big story if I can get it confirmed.

  01:52 — Markus:
  In terms of the overall strategic element as well, obviously it unravelled rather quickly. Is it a case of him underestimating the reaction? Is it a case of, as you and I have discussed, having the God syndrome where you feel like you are untouchable because of everything you've gone through?

  You've obviously been following him for a while in terms of how he operates and things. What do you think was going through his head?

  02:16 — Martyn:
  Yeah, clearly the idea had been in his mind for many months.

  Some other things that I've learned — people with knowledge of the discussions have said — is that they confirmed that Joshua Kushner was going to be the lead investor. That's quite significant because obviously Jared Kushner, his brother, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, became very close to Infantino back in 2018 when the USA was bidding for the World Cup. So they had maintained this relationship.

  That was pretty significant.

  And if you look back now, with the benefit of hindsight, at all these things that FIFA was doing, and Gianni Infantino in particular was doing, before the World Cup — removing two matches of the ban of Cristiano Ronaldo, announcing hydration breaks with every match, the Peace Prize with Donald Trump, really crazy ticket prices, and then perhaps even the Balogun decision to remove the suspension during the World Cup — to me, those always seemed like Infantino was putting out a message to potential investors, saying:

  "Look, we can control the tournament to make sure it's the biggest commercial success, and it's going to be even bigger if you come on board. We know we can make the decisions that can make it a success commercially."

  Even the halftime show, which is in clear breach of FIFA's own rules over the length of time that the halftime break was.

  The message is: rules don't count. We will do what is necessary for commercial success.

  So you mentioned the God syndrome, or the Icarus syndrome. I think that's right. He went higher and higher and higher, but this time he flew too close to the sun, and it all collapsed.

  04:15 — Jan:
  What's the biggest surprise in terms of the people in and around football?

  Football is — you could argue — the biggest entertainment business in the world. And somehow, sports in general, but football after Havelange and Blatter and Infantino...

  All these people in and around football, not saying anything, just sitting there. Different reasons for that.

  But when you go after your stories, how surprising is it that strong people don't have the — pardon my French — balls to talk or speak up?

  And Lise Klaveness is maybe a bad example of my metaphor there! But Lise Klaveness is one of ours who absolutely started with the Peace Prize and everything.

  How surprised are you when you see people who have big titles, big wages, don't say anything?

  05:18 — Martyn:
  Well, I think it's because it's a process. These things happen bit by bit.

  So the Peace Prize and things like that — yes, we had Lise Klaveness talking about it, but other national associations were reluctant to be drawn into that. And even among confederation leaders, people were maybe talking privately, criticising it, but no one was prepared to come out. Very few people were prepared to come out in football about the Peace Prize.

  I think with the FIFA Forward Enterprise project, Infantino knew that this was going to be so controversial, especially for UEFA and other confederations, that he actually didn't tell most of the people.

  In fact, none of the FIFA Council knew about it. These are meant to be the board of directors, and he didn't tell them.

  Even quite senior people, official paid executives in the organisation, didn't know about it. The FIFA vice-presidents didn't know about it.

  Quite a small group of people had worked on this in secret. And the reason for that is, I think, he knew it was going to be massively controversial for some confederations.

  But his idea was: he had been thwarted in 2018, mainly by UEFA, and he thought, "Well, this time I'm going to go directly to the 211 member associations, and I'm going to give them a financial offer they can't refuse."

  Which is $40 million over the next four years if you accept the deal, or $10 million if you don't.

  And he thought, well, that's going to guarantee him the outcome that he wanted.

  Unfortunately, he misjudged that very badly.

  07:23 — Markus:
  A friend of the podcast, The Athletic's Seb Stafford-Bloor, compared it to a fearful royal court, where you were either sent with your pockets filled with gold or sent to the gallows.

  But in light of that, we then had UEFA, AFC and Concacaf together with a joint announcement — a named announcement with actual named backers, as opposed to the FIFA statement.

  How significant is that? And also in the context of the remaining member associations, in terms of perhaps the fear that Infantino wields, or the convincing measures of the $40 million or thereabouts?

  08:01 — Martyn:
  Yeah, I think it's really significant that you had the leaders of UEFA, Concacaf and, significantly, the Asian Football Confederation united and signing letters in their names, like they did recently, talking about deception and questioning Infantino's leadership.

  So I think that's — I don't think we've ever seen anything like this.

  I've been covering FIFA since I covered the Sepp Blatter election in 1998. So I've been covering FIFA since then, and there were big ruptures between Europe and the Blatter FIFA in the early part of this century.

  There's nothing like the civil war we see today.

  It's unprecedented. It's remarkable. And I'm very interested to see how it ends.

  08:53 — Jan:
  I'm just thinking of that, Martyn, because I speak to different people, and what I've been told — and you've probably been told the same — is that you can see that the strategy now is to push him out instead of vote him out.

  Because it's one nation, one vote, and somehow you get a feeling that the federations or the confederations won't be able 100% to vote in blocs.

  Do you share that the main strategy now is to get him out instead of waiting until the voting process?

  09:35 — Martyn:
  That is definitely the strategy at the minute.

  They believe that, with not just the scheme itself but how he went about the scheme, he's proved himself sort of unfit to be the president, and he needs to leave.

  I think if it comes to — I mean, I think if there was a vote today, then Infantino would probably lose, and he would be out if he was up against a single candidate.

  But I guess Infantino is thinking: hang on, maybe I can turn things around. Persuade other national associations, get in touch with other national associations, persuade them to swap sides.

  Perhaps you can make some offers.

  10:28 — Markus:
  Infantino came in obviously promising reform after Blatter.

  Ten years on, he seems as if he's more independent of FIFA rather than an extension of it.

  I suppose the question then leads me into: what if Infantino goes, and what will FIFA look like then?

  I ask because of the structure of FIFA. You've followed them for so long, and obviously it's not the first time they've been mired in scandal.

  Why wouldn't it happen again with somebody else? Can we guarantee that? Is there a way to change that, given the circumstances?

  11:04 — Martyn:
  Well, I have seen this idea that you have a sort of rotation basis.

  So you rotate between the confederation presidents every World Cup cycle, every four years, so that you don't have somebody coming in and staying for 15 years — or it could be, for Infantino, if he gets re-elected, 15 years.

  So you have somebody who is their confederation president and also the FIFA president at the same time, and that moves round and moves round.

  You don't have people trying to basically use FIFA competitions to secure their own position.

  Because I think we've often seen that, even back to the Blatter days, the whole thing about FIFA development money and promises to the member associations is, you know, every time you promise something to the member associations, what you're saying is: "Please vote for me in the next election," effectively.

  A lot of people think that's a dangerous system because it encourages the wrong decisions.

  You're not necessarily protecting football. You're trying to protect your position.

  12:29 — Jan:
  Yeah, and talking about that, Martyn — Markus and our family, we spent a weekend in Florence, in Firenze, and we were learning about Lorenzo de' Medici.

  And if we take it back to our ancestors, the Vikings, it was the same thing. You just bribe the weak ones, and you bribe and get your votes.

  And now you have a system at FIFA that is up to 30 people sitting in the FIFA Council, vice-presidents or presidents of different football associations, with $300,000 a year.

  How much will they help you to change the system? And how much will a new man or woman be able to change that part of the system?

  13:13 — Martyn:
  Yeah, I think that's a good point.

  And one thing Infantino has done is increase the number of committees and committee places hugely. There's more than, I think, quadruple the number that he's had.

  And the heads of these committees also get paid money.

  So it's all very tied up in all these things that I think are issues that a new FIFA could look to tackle.

  And it'd be great if there was some sort of reform process brought in now.

  But, you know, not everybody is interested in reform.

  Even those who want Infantino out may not be that interested in reform.

  13:54 — Jan:
  As we're coming towards the end, Martyn, you are a very respected journalist — one of the best, if not the best, in this business — and you like to get your stories confirmed.

  But I still need to put my tabloid hat on a bit at the end, and I would like you to see into the future, because things are changing by the day.

  Just before I came on, I saw reports saying that the AFC will probably say globally they won't take part in that, and they will be more official in those terms.

  How do you see it now going forward? Rabat is the 18th of March, the final. There needs to be a decision before that.

  Do you think, with your knowledge of Infantino, that he will think he can survive until then?

  And my second question is also a strategic question. If you put forward a European candidate again, would it be easier to take one from Concacaf, as has been spoken about? Would that be an easier sell for the other confederations?

  I want you to go out of script now, on oath of your professional-quality journalism!

  15:06 — Martyn:
  Sure.

  Well, I think Infantino will — whether he thinks he can get it, I think he hopes he can. I don't necessarily think he thinks he can.

  But for him, maybe there's no alternative.

  If he resigns, what is he? There's no private jets. There's no mixing with world leaders. There's no going to the Davos summit. There's no shaking hands with celebrities. There's no smiling, playing football with FIFA legends.

  That's all gone.

  He becomes a nobody, and for him that's probably intolerable. He can't possibly imagine that. That's not part of his plan.

  So I think he will stay on as long as possible, even if he gets defeated in March. He will take that chance. That's my guess.

  And in terms of a European, I don't think there can be another European. We've had two Europeans now.

  I think it makes more sense to have somebody either from Concacaf — Victor Montagliani — or somebody from the Asian Football Confederation.

  There's been talk about Nasser Al-Khelaifi, as president of Paris Saint-Germain. I think he'd be a strong candidate, but obviously Qatar has been backing Infantino until now. And would the Emir of Qatar let him do that? That's an interesting look.

  Prince Ali of Jordan stood against him before. He's been very critical of Gianni Infantino, but he didn't get many votes in 2016, so that's another issue.

  And then Sheikh Salman, the Asian Football Confederation president from Bahrain — he was narrowly beaten by Infantino in 2016. He could stand again, perhaps, but I'm not sure people would see him as a reformist candidate.

  17:04 — Markus:
  Last question for me before we conclude.

  It's just a broader question in terms of how extensively and for how long you've covered football governance, and we've obviously undergone tremendous change.

  Does it make you cynical about the business of football? Does it make you pessimistic about the direction we're going?

  Obviously, there's that sentiment among fans in terms of increased ticket prices, accessibility and what have you.

  But when you cover this, what reflections come into your mind when you look at the future of the game itself?

  17:37 — Martyn:
  Yeah. I was getting increasingly cynical in the last year going up to the World Cup, because I thought it was squeezing fans for every penny that they had.

  And it was unnecessary. FIFA was making such big revenues anyway.

  Why do you have to make money out of everything?

  Because it just seemed extortionate, and some of the decisions that were made around the World Cup, which we've talked about.

  So that made me feel cynical.

  I now have a bit more hope for the future that things can be turned around, and some of the excesses that we've seen recently can be put into the past.

  18:25 — Jan:
  Well, they say, Martyn, hope is not a strategy, but it's something we can cling onto because we're getting more and more cynical, don't we?

  But we love our game, and we want our game to be as clean as possible.

  Thank you very much for being a part of this. We appreciate you. You were our main guest we were dreaming of when you did that because we're big fans of yours, and also the podcast you're taking part in.

  So, Markus, if you don't have something sensible — which you always have at the end — then you can wrap it up.

  18:57 — Markus:
  No, I think it's also just to say thank you, Martyn, for taking the time. Really appreciate it, and I know our audience will as well.

  19:04 — Martyn:
  Great. Great to be with you guys.