Let’s just get this out in the open, shall we? When it comes to Fifa President Gianni Infantino (main image), the word “statutes” sounds less like a set of rules and more like something you’d find etched on a particularly dusty, forgotten gravestone.
He twaddles on about “humanitarian values” and football being a “force for good”. Sounds darling – like a cute baby unicorn tooting rainbows. But the truth, of course, is that the real decisions are made by men in suits, probably smelling faintly of expensive cigars and desperation, all while sniffing the alluring aroma of cold, hard cash.
Nowhere is this whole rotten edifice more glaringly, more offensively, more laughably obvious than in Infantino’s utterly spineless, utterly indefensible inaction regarding Israel.
The Palestinian Football Association – God bless them for even trying – has laid out a case clearer than a freshly polished car: international law being stomped on, Palestinian football being treated like a broken bicycle, and clubs from illegal settlements merrily kicking footballs in the Israeli league. It’s all there, plain as day, pissing directly in the face of everything he claims his gilded empire stands for.
Yet, what do we hear from Fifa? Nothing. Or rather, a nervous cough – like the one you get when someone grabs you between the legs. Or a pathetic shuffling of feet, and the nauseating murmur about “exceptional complexity and sensitivity”.
The only thing complex here is Infantino’s remarkable talent for tying himself in knots to avoid the bleeding obvious. And don’t even get me started on the drawn-out muttering of “independent legal expertise” and “due diligence”.
That’s just corporate-speak for “we’re doing precisely nothing, very slowly”.
We all saw him pounce like a cheetah on a gazelle when Russia decided to play imperialist dress-up in Ukraine. Sanctions? Boom. Swift and absolute.
Russian teams? Banned. Their World Cup dreams? Obliterated like a cheap hatchback in a demolition derby. And quite right too. But when it comes to Israel – a nation whose actions in Palestinian territories are, by most sensible accounts, a genocide – Infantino’s moral compass suddenly develops a severe case of jet lag.
It’s like watching a champion boxer suddenly develop jelly legs when faced with his abusive mother.
And this isn’t just me, by the way. Football legend Gary Lineker, for instance – a man whose opinions carry more weight and integrity than some football officials – didn’t mince words when he explicitly called for Israel’s exclusion from international sporting events, citing the very precedent Infantino himself set with Russia.
When Lineker pointed out this glaring inconsistency – this moral rot at the core of Infantino’s inaction – it resonated. Because he sees it for what it is: a monumental failure of leadership, a grotesque capitulation to political expediency.
Frankly, it’s pathetic. The absence of a ban isn’t just a little blunder; it’s a catastrophic implosion of legitimacy.
Infantino is flaccid, incapable of rising firmly when the occasion demanded it. Utterly impotent when faced with a real challenge to his stated principles.
He built this massive, opulent manor of global football, plastered with banners of “fair play” and “humanity”, only to reveal that the foundations are made of soggy biscuits.
What’s worse – far worse – is that this sorry dysfunction potentially leads to further presumption that Infantino’s Fifa is not just impotent, but effectively dead. He has lost control over the very affairs of football he was established to govern.
And if he can’t even enforce his own rules – rules he claims are now subject to endless “ongoing investigations” rather than decisive action – then he might as well just quit. Seriously.
Who in their right mind will believe in the integrity of his competitions, his rulings, his very existence? It’s a joke. A very bad one.
If he continues to remain drunk on political influence and impotent in the face of injustice, the beautiful game will become nothing more than a contemptuous tool for geopolitical hanky-panky.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
