Most FIFA scandals don’t last longer than a news cycle, simply because no one is surprised anymore. Bribes, rigged bids, a made-up “FIFA Peace Prize” for President Donald Trump. If you tried to keep a timeline, you’d need a spreadsheet and some extra strength Tylenol.
This latest mess, however, is worth pulling from the pile. It shows the specific ire that awaits elected officials who breach the public’s trust. From decades in crisis communications, I know that if the fallout is handled poorly, recovery becomes completely out of reach.
For Canadians who may have stopped paying attention after our team’s knockout round loss to Morocco, let’s get up to speed. Soon after the tournament, news leaked that FIFA president Gianni Infantino secretly planned to sell a 20 per cent stake in the World Cup to private investors. Even high-ranking FIFA executives and advisers had been kept in the dark. Waiting in the wings was Thrive Capital, run by none other than Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Anyone who watched the public’s reaction to the East Wing’s demolition, or the plan to open up Ontario’s Greenbelt, or the abandoned sell-off of England’s public forests could guess what happened next.
The people roared.
Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham tore into Infantino’s plan on social media: “The World Cup is not a product. It is the greatest competition in world sport, and it was never anyone’s to sell.”
The idea is so ill-conceived that Infantino leaving out fellow FIFA executives starts to look less like a shocking reveal, and more like the crux of the problem. If they’d been at the table, they might have stopped him.
Instead, that fell to Europe, where member nations voted unanimously to boycott all future FIFA tournaments if the deal moved forward. Imagine a World Cup without Spain, France or England. FIFA shelved the plan and released a statement to acknowledge that “the process should have been handled differently.”
This is the type of nonapology that, rightfully, no one accepts. It failed to provide a clear explanation of what transpired behind closed doors or outline any corrective action. So, the narrative remained intact: This man tried to sell the soul of the beautiful game.
In an “open letter to the football family” three powerful governing bodies — UEFA, which runs soccer in Europe; CONCACAF, which covers North and Central America and the Caribbean; and the AFC, which governs the game across Asia — teamed up to take aim at Infantino. They called what he had done “a fundamental breach of trust” and in their sharpest attack said: “When trust is broken through deception, when an individual places himself above the collective that entrusted him with authority, that duty has been abandoned.”
Suddenly, Infantino’s stroll to re-election is a climb.
Infantino has since gone uncharacteristically quiet. I can remember a time when we’d advise a client to lay low until the storm blew over. That’s nonsense today, in a relentless media environment where silence reads as admission. Here in Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has lost confidence in Infantino. So has the Canadian president of CONCACAF, Victor Montagliani, who co-signed the critical letter and could emerge as a unity candidate when FIFA’s 211 member nations vote in March.
Infantino hasn’t backed down. He’s circling the wagons. Powerful voting members including Mexico and Argentina still support his re-election bid, as does the Confederation of African Football. This is important because nothing builds credibility faster than having respected, independent voices speak out on your behalf. Such voices matter in a crisis. Then, there’s Trump’s.
The U.S. president declared on social media that it would be “a terrible mistake” to remove Infantino. “He is fantastic … If he is gone, [the World Cup] will never be as successful or profitable again!” All this served to do was remind people that Trump personally called Infantino to get the red card against Team USA’s Folarin Balogun overturned.
Whether or not Infantino keeps his job, this latest FIFA scandal is the one that should keep elected officials up at night. A breach of trust will grab the public’s attention and not let go, even in the dog days of summer.
