He’s not such a tough guy after all…..
Gianni Infantino who has navigated the football terrain with impunity and reckless abandon, is now fighting for his life in the realm of football politics, following the massive anti-FIFA sentiment growing across the world.
The beginning of this current crisis cycle can be traced back to October’s FIFA Council meeting in Shanghai China, where he bulldozed his way into imposing a new Club World Cup competition, whose existence meant the altering of all other global football competitions.
And in rapid succession, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) quickly reverted from a summer Africa Cup of Nations to winter, much to the chagrin of coaches like Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp.
Within the same period, Gianni Infantino accompanied by Real Madrid President Fiorentina Perez and TP Mazembe President Moise Katumbi begun floating the concept of a new global league, to be controlled and manipulated by FIFA.
Those moves didn’t go unnoticed and last week, European Football Confederation UEFA and South American CONMEBOL held a crisis meeting in the Swiss city of Nyon and floated the idea of a no-confidence motion against Gianni Infantino. The vote was to be proposed at the FIFA Council meeting in Asuncion Paraguay, slated for March 20th.
Gianni Infantino went into a state of panic, dispatching spies to Nyon to snoop on the meeting, while other emissaries openly attempted to engage CONMEBOL President Alejandro Dominguez, who publicly informed them that he could not even shake Infantino’s hand due to what he termed as “betrayal”.
The crux of the matter is that all these phantom initiatives being launched by Gianni Infantino, have one common objective which is to undermine confederations and diminish their revenue streams. The two most powerful football confederations boasting a combined vote basket of 65, have now said that enough is enough.
They had planned to marshal a vote against Gianni Infantino at the FIFA Council and Gianni Infantino got wind of their plans.
He sent out a press release late afternoon today, instead proposing a video conference meeting, which will shield him from the risk of a no-confidence vote.
FIFA Council meeting to be held via video conference
At the request of several of its members, the upcoming meeting of the FIFA Council, which was originally scheduled to take place in Asunción, Paraguay, will be held by video conference on 20 March 2020 at 10:00 (CET) from Zurich, Switzerland. The meeting will be organised at the Home of FIFA, with members wishing to meet in person also welcomed to attend. The final agenda and additional details, including information on media activities, will be communicated in due time. The FIFA Council will meet as planned in June 2020 in Addis Ababa ahead of the 70th FIFA Congress.
What is emerging is that Gianni Infantino is a man nearing the end of his football career, triggering an uprising never witnessed in football before. What he enjoyed as near unanimous support for his leadership and delusions of grandeur, is slowly crumbling into the biggest wave of dissent.
The world is fatigued by the constant talk of money and prosperity at the expense of grassroots development and the pyramid structure of football.
Just a month ago, he was wining and dining with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland and now, he’s being reduced to illegally canceling a FIFA Council meeting, the highest governing organ in the football structure.
That’s the unforgiving nature of today’s dynamic football environment. You snooze, you loose.
