Trump just won the World Cup – FIFA’s surrender was utterly pathetic | UK | News

History never forgets leaders who cowardly surrendered to demagogues or dictators; now the cheerful FIFA President Gianni Infantino has penned his own uneducational epitaph with the words: “Relax and relax”. Football is ‘the people’s game’, but the money-grabbing mafia that runs the global governing body has sold the soul of our sport, first under the sleazy Sepp Blatter and now under the rule of $6 million Swiss lawyer Infantino.

Sky-high ticket prices, players predicted to be scorching on the field in 40-degree heat, deadly lightning storms, visa bans on referees and journalists, and Super Bowl-style halftime shows; Welcome to the 2026 World Cup! And that’s before we even talk about what will likely be Donald Trump’s political greatness on a scale not experienced since the infamous Berlin Olympics in 1936.

The article was indicative of FIFA’s approach to both Trump and the tournament, which took place during North America’s torrid summer, when sports autocrat Infantino sneaked into the White House in December last year.

US President Trump will feel he was made for the World Cup; he and his country will take center stage in front of a record global audience of an estimated six billion.

Every word he speaks will be heard and absorbed; You can bet he’ll take to the stage after the final to hand over the trophy.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who took a strong role in 2016, had previously compared this World Cup to playing “104 Super Bowls in one month”.

He gushed: “The Super Bowl, which is amazing, has 120-130 million viewers?” Infantino told FOX Sports. “There are six billion in the World Cup.”

Last year, the sight of Infantino attacking Trump as he presented him with the first ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ before the glitzy World Cup draw was sickening.

Trump’s FIFA Peace Prize is a pretty dated award after he threw the Middle East into turmoil by firing rockets at Iran.

I once wrote that Infantino is like a fan for Trump’s fire, but worse, he’s an enabler.

Trump took control of the World Cup right under FIFA’s nose and they don’t seem to care as they are focused on collecting as much money as possible from fans.

Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry to the US to officiate at the World Cup, fans called ticket prices a “colossal betrayal” and a US travel ban excluded journalists.

Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was interrogated for several hours at the Chicago airport and Iran was forced to move its base to Mexico – and Infantino’s reaction to all this?

He denied all of this in his 66-minute press conference on the eve of the tournament, urging us all to “calm down and relax” instead.

He continued: “What happened to Ömer is unfortunate. But we cannot control everything. We try, we discuss and we will talk.

“Maybe sometimes it’s also good to calm down and relax a bit. We work on everything and try to solve everything. Sometimes starting to scream and shout has the opposite effect of finding a solution.

“Believe me when I say we always try to find solutions. We are not kings of the world who can run governments and police forces; we are a sports organisation.

“When I say ‘keep calm’, I don’t mean ‘keep calm and do nothing’, I mean trust us.”

Trust is hard earned and easily lost. But for Infantino, this situation collapsed years ago.