Gianni Infantino has now served ten years as president of the world’s most important sports federation. And to show everyone how significant he and his FIFA are, he attended last week the “Board of Peace”. This is the “Peace Council”, with which U.S. President Donald Trump aims to challenge the UN, if not replace it.
What is FIFA doing there? Common answers say: Infantino is opportunistically currying favor with the US administration. He is “a functionary creature of America’s favor,” writes the Süddeutsche, and the left-leaning U.S. magazine The Nation comments: “Infantino wanted to do something he loves even more than watching football: to curry favor with Donald Trump.”
It seems to me that these explanations are based on a merely superficial impression, but ultimately they are wrong. The world football federation FIFA has under Gianni Infantino and his predecessor Sepp Blatter attained an enormous global political significance, which is currently being increased.
With the Peace Council, FIFA has entered into a “strategic partnership.” Initially it concerns Gaza, and afterwards FIFA also wants to participate in other regions of the world. The partners want “to use football to support reconstruction, stability and long-term development in conflict-affected regions,” it says. Specifically in Gaza this means: an aid program “with infrastructure, education and elite development,” plus 50 mini-soccer fields and a national stadium with 20,000 seats will be built.
FIFA Fits Perfectly into the New World Order
In other words: If a “Riviera in the Middle East” (Trump) emerges and the war-torn, crisis-ridden stretch of land is capitalist-opened up, FIFA does not want to stand on the sidelines. The Peace Council, into which members can buy in for 1 billion US dollars, stands for something that one could describe as the commodification of international politics. The influence of tech and real estate billionaires on the US administration stands for the attempt to profit from interstate relations.
Over the past 30 years FIFA has shown, in two ways, that it is ideally suited for this project of a commodified world order. Article 61 of the FIFA Statutes states that football and states have nothing to do with each other. “When in international football the formula of separating the spheres of football/sport and politics/state is invoked,” writes political scientist Timm Beichelt in his book “Ersatzspielfelder” (Substitute Playing Fields), “it is usually translated as football actors obstinately resisting interference by chosen political actors as much as resisting the urging of normative standards that are customary in democratic societies.”
Recently the Congolese football federation was, among others, suspended from world football. The reason was that the government of the Republic of the Congo asserted responsibility for the federation’s headquarters and sought to control its finances. The government gave in, and FIFA lifted the suspension.
Years ago, unthinkable: A football association forces states to surrender sovereignty
What was unthinkable years ago is now reality: a football association can force nation-states to partially relinquish their sovereignty. With their men’s World Cup, FIFA holds a first-class blackmail tool: if you do not obey us, you may not play—and then try explaining that to your people! The Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) missed the World Cup qualification because of FIFA’s decision.
FIFA’s Own Currency
As FIFA rises to a global political actor, there is more: Gianni Infantino recently announced an own FIFA currency, “a potentially global currency for 6 billion football fans.” Also, FIFA has a banking license to process all football transfers with its own financial institution. That European courts prohibited this is likely to only temporarily hinder the federation. Not to mention that FIFA could also sever its ties with Switzerland. While the Swiss Confederation grants the association favorable tax conditions, sporadic legal proceedings annoy FIFA executives. Why not somewhere else? Gianni Infantino has recently acquired Lebanese citizenship.
What, then, does Trump want from the decidedly powerful FIFA? He needs it for a fight on another plane: hegemony. Institutions that influence everyday life, such as Hollywood or the music industry, prove cumbersome when subjected to Trump’s world order. This also applies to major sports: With the NFL, Trump clashed over the Super Bowl halftime show—too diverse, too immigration-friendly. And the NBA’s basketball players embody global and liberal values, because their league has risen to a world league whose stars now come from all over the world, not just the United States. And many players, especially African American stars, are symbols of anti-Trump protest.
So far, football in the USA has not belonged to the major hegemonic sports. But it offers potential: Not for nothing does Trump want to change the term “Soccer” to “Football” to give European football options for the US market. FIFA responds by underscoring its cultural importance in the form of a “FIFA Peace Prize” for Trump. That this was a cringe-worthy spectacle, I think everyone involved anticipated. Their aim was to drive a stake in as visible a way as possible: We are more important than the Nobel Prize.
One must assume, writes Timm Beichelt, “that through international football on the pre-political level a frame of interpretation is established that provides alternatives to democracy.”
In principle it would be nice if all this were driven only by embarrassing megalomania. Then one could ignore it. But football and its monopolist world federation fit perfectly into the dangerous project of a new world order.
I fear that after ten years in office we must begin to take Gianni Infantino seriously.
