Patrick Nally built world sport's first global sponsorship programmes – and watched Horst Dassler turn commercial control into political power. He says the Infantino affair is not a FIFA but a system problem; the IOC and most federations sit inside the same architecture: presidential-style fiefdoms.
By scrapping FFE, Gianni Infantino is trying to save his own skin. The reaction to his plans has been overwhelmingly negative worldwide, and within FIFA itself, a key figure – COO Kevin Lamour – has spectacularly turned his back on him. Infantino must go, but that alone is not enough.
The Olympic fencing federation FIE and its Hamburg lawyer announced a purported legal victory over Reuters to the world. I obtained both court orders and read them against that propaganda. Very little of what the federation and its lawyer claim about these decisions survives the comparison.
All 55 UEFA associations stand as one: no European national team will play in a FIFA competition for as long as Infantino's plan to sell stakes in the World Cup stands. In 30 years I cannot recall a threat of this magnitude. Read the full statement — and FIFA's own 25-page FFE presentation.
Has FIFA and IOC fiend Gianni Infantino gone too far this time? Or will he manage it once again: to split the football world with his plan to spin off FIFA's assets into a company part-owned by dubious investors, and at the same time bait the majority of member associations with money?