Eight years ago Gianni Infantino was a member of the Fifa reform committee that introduced a series of measures to rescue the scandal-hit governing body from a near-terminal crisis. On Friday, now as Fifa president, Infantino will oversee rule changes that critics say will roll back some of the most important reforms.
The 2024 Fifa Congress in Bangkok is set to reverse a ban — brought in as a result of the vote-rigging in 2010 for Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups — on two World Cups being awarded at the same time.
The statute change will allow Fifa to award the 2030 and 2034 World Cups later this year: to Spain/Portugal/Morocco in 2030 (with three matches in South America) and — more importantly for Fifa and Infantino — to Saudi Arabia in 2034.
The Fifa Congress will also vote to multiply the number of committees from seven to 35, even more than pre-reform levels, in a move seen by some as a return to the system of patronage that the disgraced former president Sepp Blatter had constructed.
When he was elected president in 2016 Infantino promised to clean up Fifa after Blatter’s reign. Until then he had kept a low profile in football administration. A Swiss lawyer, he ran Uefa’s legal department before becoming general-secretary, and suddenly found himself thrust into the Fifa presidential election after his boss Michel Platini was banned from standing.
Although he had flown under the radar previously, Infantino appeared to take to flying in private jets and mixing with political leaders and celebrity chefs with relish. The grey suits were replaced by designer hoodies and white trainers and Infantino appeared to be particularly drawn to Saudi Arabia, perhaps anticipating the country’s growing power in sport.
The change to allow the dual award of World Cups follows Fifa’s sudden decision in October to fast-track the bidding process for the 2034 tournament to run alongside that for 2030. It was something that caught most of the football world by surprise and was seen as stacking the deck in the favour of the Saudis, now Infantino’s biggest allies.
Fifa’s surprise announcement gave potential bidders less than four weeks to register their interest. Within minutes of that announcement about the new 2034 bid process, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman issued a statement saying the Gulf kingdom was bidding — it would turn out to be the only bid. By contrast Australia, which had previously indicated an interest in 2034, was given no advance warning of Fifa’s announcement.
Last month it was confirmed that the Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco has become Fifa’s biggest sponsor and been given a sponsor category all of its own.
The inclusion of Morocco — another big supporter of Infantino — alongside Spain and Portugal for 2030 may also have much to do with the Fifa president. Leaked WhatsApp messages from Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez to the then Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales in 2018 said that “both you and Infantino proposed the idea to me that I praised”.
Fifa has denied that the 2030 or 2034 World Cups are rewards for Infantino’s supporters. It says the decisions on the bidding process were taken by the whole Fifa Council.
Miguel Maduro, a Portuguese law professor, was the chairman of the Fifa governance and review committee set up in 2015 that Infantino also sat on. He says Fifa appears to be “unashamedly reversing the reforms of 2016”.
He told The Times: “Everything seems to have been organised so that the World Cup of Portugal and Spain included Morocco and then South America, to make sure the following World Cup could be awarded to a country in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia.
“The tender and process was already not in accordance with the promise of a transparent, competitive bidding process. It was a top-down, non-competitive, non-transparent process.
“Now they are going back formally on the reform. They don’t fear the reputational costs.”
There are seven Fifa standing committees at the moment compared to 26 before the reforms, and the congress is being urged to approve that number being increased to 35. Some are important changes, such as having a committee for women’s football and one for anti-discrimination after its anti-racism task force was dissolved in 2016, six months after Infantino’s presidency began.
But Maduro argues that the committee places become prized as they offer attractive per diems and travel, as well as opportunities to progress within Fifa.
“It is a form of institutionalised vote-buying,” he said. “You generate political allegiance – you reward people for their support but in a way that doesn’t get you into trouble. It is a system of patronage.”
Other football bodies have also been overturning reforms. The Asian Football Confederation met in Bangkok on Thursday and voted in favour of a proposal made by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to remove 12-year term limits for elected officials. Now its president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain and other executive committee members can remain in their positions for as long as they wish.
Infantino revealed in 2022 that the Fifa Council had agreed that his first term in office did not count towards the 12-year limit as it was a partial term — three years instead of the full four.
Few national associations will speak out publicly about the latest proposed Fifa statute changes, but the president of the Norwegian FA, Lise Klaveness, has described them as “worrying”. She told The Times: “This is not according to the reforms that were brought in after Gianni was elected to avoid the rigging that we saw with Qatar-Russia and after the terrible period of criminality.
“The short deadline we saw in October, and the lack of transparency around the process, was a big missed opportunity in implementing the reforms, or at worst a way of avoiding implementing the reforms.”
Asked about Maduro’s criticisms, Fifa said “it does not agree with this sentiment at all” and “has massively changed since 2016”.
It said the increase in committees reflected the fact it had “greatly expanded its activities, competitions and areas of intervention”, adding in a statement: “Critically, an increased number of standing committees will also see more female representation in the decision-making processes of Fifa.”
Fifa also claimed its reform process had been “acknowledged by several external organisations, including the United States Department of Justice”.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, told the New York Times this week: “Our office has not endorsed the effectiveness of any of Fifa’s current reform efforts.”
