FIFA has a Gianni Infantino problem

There are sentences one never expected to write. Here is one: Sepp Blatter is beginning to look good. That is quite an accomplishment by Gianni Infantino. Blatter presided over FIFA when corruption became so synonymous with international football that the organisation occasionally resembled a criminal enterprise with a sporting division. Eventually, American prosecutors arrived. In 2015, the United States indicted nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives on racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering charges arising from what prosecutors described as a 24-year corruption scheme. Two serving FIFA vice-presidents were among those charged. The scandal engulfed the organisation and helped end Blatter’s presidency. There was always an exquisite irony about America’s sudden missionary zeal concerning FIFA governance. Five years earlier, the […]