The globe-trotting sports power broker now caught in the middle of Trump’s trade war
Summary
This past week’s tariff imbroglio has left one man in an unenviable position: FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who is tasked with organizing a U.S.-Canada-Mexico World Cup next summer.
On the night before he was sworn in for his second term, Donald Trump stood at a raucous victory rally and sent a special shoutout to a 54-year-old Swiss lawyer in the stands. He referred to him simply as Gianni, and Trump wanted to express his gratitude.
The Gianni in question was FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the head of world soccer’s governing body, and next summer, he is due to deliver Trump the biggest sporting event on the planet when the U.S. co-hosts the World Cup with Mexico and Canada.
“This is FIFA at the maximum of its respect," Infantino said that night in a post for his 2.7 million Instagram followers. “Being mentioned by the new president of the United States of America in his victory rally, in his victory speech, is unique. It’s beautiful."
What Infantino couldn’t know then was that two weeks later, he would find himself in a decidedly uglier spot. He and FIFA are now caught assembling a monthlong sporting extravaganza in 16 cities from Boston to Vancouver to Monterrey in the midst of a rolling diplomatic crisis whose outcome no one seems able to predict. Over the past week, Trump has threatened both of the U.S.’s neighbors—and World Cup co-hosts—with an all-out trade war, less than 500 days from the tournament’s opening match in Mexico City.
How much Trump’s measures could affect a multicountry event that requires logistical coordination and smooth border crossings remains unclear. But the tension adds yet another layer of complexity to what will be the largest World Cup of all time. FIFA, which awarded the tournament hosting rights during Trump’s first term, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
And yet, Infantino is no stranger to the bold, sometimes erratic tactics of the heads of state he calls friends: He has spent nearly a decade cozying up to some of the most powerful men in the world. For a soccer administrator who spent most of his career working in the shadows, Infantino delights in rubbing elbows with the likes of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all in the name of developing global soccer.
As far as FIFA is concerned, Infantino has succeeded. Over his three terms dating back to 2016, Infantino has seen the organization’s annual revenues double to more than $11 billion, according to its most recent financial report. He has also overseen hugely popular, hugely controversial World Cups in Russia and Qatar and record-breaking women’s World Cups in France and Australia-New Zealand. Most recently, he led the awarding of the hosting rights for the 2034 men’s tournament to Saudi Arabia.
Infantino’s immediate focus, however, is on North America. The revamped Club World Cup, an Infantino pet project featuring 32 club teams from across the world, will take place in the U.S. this coming summer before an unprecedented World Cup featuring 48 men’s national teams next year. In 2023, FIFA even opened an office in Miami to handle its American operations.
“I would like to thank President Trump—with whom I have a great friendship," Infantino said before attending the inauguration inside the Capitol, “and to assure him that together, we will not only make America great again, but also the entire world."
More surprising than Infantino’s current network of alliances, however, is that Infantino should be in this position at all.
Born to Italian parents in a small town in Switzerland’s high Alps, he studied law in Fribourg with dreams of entering the distinctly Swiss world of sports administration. He joined the legal department of UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, in the early 2000s.
Inside UEFA’s headquarters on Lake Geneva, the multilingual Infantino was seen as an apparatchik who moved comfortably through its bureaucracy and endless committee meetings. His biggest public-facing responsibility was running the draws for major tournaments, such as the Champions League.
But Infantino was also an opportunist.
When the U.S. Justice Department uncovered a massive corruption scandal at the top of global soccer in the spring of 2015, a wave of indictments, suspensions, and resignations cleared out a generation of executives, including longtime FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his heir apparent, the French soccer legend Michel Platini. (Platini also happened to be Infantino’s mentor at UEFA.)
Sensing the moment, Infantino stepped forward. In February 2016, he was elected president behind promises of a new, reformed FIFA, one that could emerge from disgrace and rid itself of the cronyism that had defined it for decades.
“It’s over," he said in French on the night of his election. “It’s over and we can move forward."
Infantino understood that he needed to position FIFA as a victim of the corruption scandal, rather than as a perpetrator. That would allow the organization to claw back millions in stolen funds and remain in the good graces of the Justice Department.
As for FIFA’s image, Infantino let it be known that for his first official trip as president, he was flying on easyJet, the European budget airline. The many hundreds of hours on private jets would come later.
He soon made it clear how much the trappings of the FIFA title appealed to him. He traveled constantly. He organized exhibition matches with former stars and pulled on a uniform to line up alongside Diego Maradona. He glad-handed at Davos and visited Trump at his Bedminster, N.J. country club during a working vacation. Blatter, his predecessor, privately hoped to some day collect a Nobel Peace Prize for his use of soccer as a unifying force. Now Infantino was taking on the mantel of globe-trotting diplomat.
The problem is that the company he keeps has often put him in delicate situations. He opened the 2018 World Cup by sitting at the inaugural match in Moscow directly between Putin and Prince Mohammed and ended it by lavishing praise on the host country and its president.
“We all fell in love with Russia," Infantino said at a roundtable with Putin. “This is a new image of Russia that we now have."
Since then, FIFA has had to sanction Russia for the invasion of Ukraine and Infantino has unsuccessfully called on Putin to enter peace talks.
In 2022, Infantino didn’t make his life any easier when the World Cup landed in Qatar, the tiny Gulf nation whose massive investment in global soccer also highlighted sprawling human-rights abuses. The country’s stance on homosexuality and its reliance on migrant labor to build stadiums became particular flashpoints that Infantino attempted to defuse with a bizarre speech on the eve of the tournament.
“Today I feel Qatari," Infantino said, attempting to hammer home the universality of soccer. “Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker."
“We’re organizing a World Cup. We’re not organizing a war," he added. “If we could organize a competition in North Korea, I would be the first to go to North Korea."
For now, Infantino is settling for the U.S., where he has found a powerful ally—and a man who played one season of high-school soccer—in the White House. Eagle-eyed fans have noticed that a replica World Cup now sits behind the president’s desk in the Oval Office. And come next July, Trump will personally hand the real thing, made of 18-karat gold, to the captain of the winning team at the final in New Jersey.
“So I’m going to be your president for the Olympics and for the World Cup," Trump said at his victory rally. “Gianni, thank you for the World Cup."
Write to Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com
