“Just chill,” Gianni Infantino said, as Fifa continue to endure a shambolic build-up to this World Cup. This notional press conference on the eve of the opening game at the Azteca was just another part of it.
As the stand-out line – outside the Fifa president praising himself for the “impossible” of ensuring Iran play – “just chill” wasn’t quite up there with all of Infantino’s feelings from four years ago.
It also meant this didn’t really live up to billing, even if it did inadvertently say more than the actual words intended.
Infantino did reference that Doha press conference, smiling about how “we all remember that”. He made sure to use the line.
“I was feeling we had to give a voice to those who are unheard,” Infantino brazenly said. That’s quite a spin on speaking for an autocratic state who had launched a huge public relations campaign, and the reality that the migrant workers he referenced did not have their complaints heard at all.
This media address was about “United 2026”, though, and there was fittingly even more Trumpian reframing of reality.
As regards to the “unheard”, Infantino didn’t seem to want to listen to questions from journalists that Fifa would know have reported critically.
There were only four that were any way testing, as Infantino was instead asked about Lionel Messi and who he thinks will win the World Cup.
It was absolutely not what was warranted from Infantino’s first proper press conference in three years, when so much has happened and so much demands answers.
This is a random man who inexplicably has the power to sell off parts of the world game and barely a challenge is possible.
That made it all the more galling for him to talk of how “democracy is not an empty word” in reference to criticisms of the Fifa system, since a core feature of democracy is actually transparency and open media discussion.
So is actually having more than one candidate and fixed term limits, which is not something you can say of Fifa right now.
Most of the answers appeared pre-prepared, with no allowance for follow-up questions.
“I’ve not been saying anything,” Infantino said about his recent refusal to appear in front of the media, before then proceeding to ramble on without a single question for over 35 minutes of the 69-minute press conference.
It was arch filibustering, as he gave a potted World Cup history of the Azteca and seemed to freestyle about anything that came into his mind.
Having suddenly whipped out the World Cup itself, there was an admittedly more noble call for a presidential pardon for French journalist Christophe Gleizes, who has been imprisoned in Algeria.
“There is an empty seat,” Infantino said of “the only sports journalist imprisoned in the world.”
This was good, but also felt a lot like nakedly political pandering to an audience of journalists before not actually giving them what they needed.
Infantino’s pre-ramble also acknowledged the three main controversies that he knew the critical media would want to discuss: Iran, ticketing, visas.
He just offered very skewed portrayals of the subjects, while trying to move the Overton window on all of them.
This was not actually a forum to discuss any of this.
On Iran, there was some pious pondering from Infantino.
“I don’t know who else, in these circumstances, which we cannot influence, obviously, can make Iran come and play,” he remarked.
Self praise is apparently the only praise.
Infantino then went on to say that the demand proves they were “correct” on tickets, as he irrelevantly compared prices to those for US events, such as the NBA Finals, where the New York Knicks face the San Antonio Spurs, and how the World Cup is “much, much more important”. He then shamelessly claimed that “we want to bring football to every fan”.
This sort of double-think was everywhere, as Infantino singularly proceeded with Trumpian rambling.
The Fifa president even claimed he has “a statutory responsibility to raise the income” to redistribute around the game – which he absolutely doesn’t. That is quite a re-interpretation of Fifa’s statutes.
In any case, as is always worth repeating, Fifa projected revenues of $14bn before these ticket plans.
On visas, Infantino did concede there have been “challenges we would prefer not to deal with”.
There was still time for another apparent pre-prepared statement to one question on that, as he referred to how it came from the BBC and nobody would want Fifa to overrule UK laws if England gets to host the 2035 women’s World Cup.
This was actually exactly the line that Fifa’s communications team had been giving journalists the day before, and also completely evaded the actual issue. This isn’t about overruling laws, after all, but partnerships and contractual provisions with hosts that are supposed to smooth such issues.
Not that Infantino was ever going as far as to criticise Trump on such “challenges”, of course.
Having lauded their “great relationship”, Infantino said “it would have been impossible to organise a World Cup in the United States” without his help.
What help? And what would the outcome have been had the Democrats stayed in power? Was Fifa’s great event just going to collapse and be packed away?
All of this just illustrated how ensconced Infantino is in the Trump orbit, to the point of actually sounding like him.
He can say anything. There’ll be no proper challenges allowed.
Infantino hadn’t held a proper press conference in three years and it’s hard not to feel he still hasn’t.
