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As the only candidate, Gianni Infantino's vote for a second term as FIFA president is merely a formality.
The FIFA president may not be more in the hearts of fans around the world than his two scandal-ridden predecessors, Avelange and Blatter. Many fans are worried or disgusted by the idea that Infantino wants to expand FIFA events at all costs, such as the biennial World Cup or the oversized Club World Cup.
However, the impression of Infantino in the minds of fans does not affect his place in the FIFA family. What fans who hate him don't understand is that it is precisely because of the growing popularity of personal rights that Infantino dares to throw out his bizarre ideas. Of course, he knew that it would trigger criticism from public opinion, but what FIFA president really cared about public opinion? What's more, Infantino's power even surpassed that of his predecessors.
Since 2016, Infantino has expanded his power, and his greed for power is beyond the reach of even his predecessor Blatter. The Swiss who worked in Spain and married an Arab wife had a cute multicultural face. But his shrewdest point is not that he is multilingual, but that he is very aware of the essence of ballot politics: the exchange of interests.
He made corrupt South American football his firm ticket and allied himself with the rich Arab world. Through cooperation projects with many small countries, and by promising a World Cup expansion to the soccer's latecomers, he can be very confident that he has the absolute majority necessary for re-election.
For example, in the 2026 Super Large 48 World Cup, many fans are skeptical, what will the quality of the game look like? There have been proposals for a new format to ensure a more competitive format, but FIFA ended up adopting the 12-set scheme that is the most conservative, archaic and most likely to make the group stage boring. The biggest benefit of this scheme is that each participating team can play at least 3 games, and 32 of the 48 teams will be guaranteed to play 4 games. People who love to watch football are not necessarily happy, but the representatives of the countries that are the latecomers to football are happy.
Who are the opponents of Infantino? It's really too little. It is Germany, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and other more than a dozen northwest European countries. Infantino certainly knows that the economic center of football is in Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, where most of the world's football wealth flows. His strategy was to plant a "Trojan horse" for the Western European world, and that Trojan horse was France. France became FIFA's "second headquarters" and former French FA president Le Graé became Infantino's confidant.
Although Le Graet resigned because of what is considered a "social death" sexual harassment scandal in today's European and American world, Infantino immediately offered him the post of head of FIFA's Paris headquarters. Specifically, Le Graet will be in charge of cooperation projects between FIFA and African countries and ensure that a large number of African countries support Infantino on various issues. Recently the French "Le Monde" revealed that Infantino and Le Graet had a good relationship so that FIFA paid for a private group of dozens of Le Graère's relatives and friends, including his family, the mayor of his hometown of Ganga, and the president of the Gangang Club.
If European countries act in a unified manner, then Infantino will not be too arrogant even if he has the chairmanship of FIFA, and he cannot easily play whatever he wants, after all, European football is a particularly important section. But in the presence of super-Trojans like France in heavily weighted Western Europe, it is difficult for European countries to take collective action. For example, after the idea of a biennial World Cup was thrown, European countries scolded, but Le Graet was the first to come out and say that new ideas are worth exploring, and he has no objection.
Representatives of both German and Belgian football federations told their national media ahead of their trip to FIFA that they did not support Infantino's re-election, arguing that Infantino had missed the most important historic opportunity to reform FIFA. In short, Infantino did not improve the ills of the Blatter period, he only inherited and amplified Blat.
But the representatives of Germany, Belgium and other countries also know very well that no one can stop Infantino's re-election. Despite being the economic center of gravity of world football, Western European countries do not have the ability or even desire to find a candidate who can attract representatives from Asia, South America and Africa. Even if they put forward a candidate of their own, it may be self-inflicted, because opposing Infantino's proposal may harm the interests of the latecomer countries in football, such as the World Cup not expanding, such as the Club World Cup remaining as it is... they will be scolded for Eurocentrism, for being selfish by the rich, and for being scolded for colonial mentality...
In the end, FIFA may say no to only the major professional leagues in Western Europe and the clubs that really pay for the stars. If FIFA ends up hurting the club's interests too much, they may rebel and not accept the business of supporting others and using it by others. However, this is not something that will happen in the near future, and the oversized Club World Cup has not yet become a reality. And "European Super League" clubs such as Real Madrid and Juve believe that their current enemy is UEFA, not FIFA.
Author: Wang Qinbo
This article was originally published in the Sports Plus app
The image comes from the Internet