KEIR RADNEDGE COMMENTARY —- Relations between FIFA and UEFA are heading down towards their worst state since the mid-1990s over the $25bn rabbit produced by Gianni Infantino out of his magician’s hat.

Last month the world federation’s Swiss president notified FIFA Council that he had signed a non-disclosure agreement with a consortium wanting to bankroll two non-existent tournaments. One would be Infantino’s pet project for an expanded Club World Cup, the other an effective takeover and worldwide expansion of the European federation’s new Nations League.

Infantino’s revelation was granted short shrift by members both of FIFA Council and, the following week, of the European Club Association. But that was only the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. He has summoned an emergency meeting of FIFA Council next month which suggests he is confident that the rest of the world will follow the money and out-vote the Europeans who comprise ‘only’ eight of the 36-strong body (excluding the president).

Progress at a price . . . FIFA president Gianni Infantino

UEFA and its president, Aleksander Ceferin, take a dim view of FIFA’s muscling in on its Champions League crown jewels and its Nations League project engineered to convert the friendly match schedule into money-making competition. Infantino would doubtless respond that FIFA devised the international calendar and thus the friendly match dates are its own original creation which it owns every right to manage.

Infantino’s turnaround against the European federation which raised him to the status of general secretary and then backed him for the top job in world football has not gone down well, to put it mildly.

Old times . . .

A former European federation supremo, speaking on condition of anonymity, told this writer: “The way it looks now relations between FIFA and UEFA risk becoming as bad as during the last days of Havelange. The difference is that then it was UEFA making the running, now it’s FIFA. Either way, it’s not good for the game, whatever the money.”

In the mid-1990s the then FIFA president Joao Havelange rejected UEFA’s bid to impose its new-model financial concepts on the world federation. The political animosity was exacerbated when FIFA general secretary Sepp Blatter defeated UEFA president Lennart Johansson in the 1998 FIFA presidential election.

Infantino is not alone within FIFA in wanting to scrap the Confederations Cup which serves as a warm-up for the World Cup; a club competition would be an obvious replacement to fill the competitive, financial, sponsorship and televisual gap.

The current Club World Cup is unpopular with European broadcasters even though nowadays the UEFA club champions always win the December-based event. However, other confederations revel in the opportunity to send their champions to duel with Europe’s best and would welcome access for more of their clubs to a far richer competition, even only once every four years.

Expanding tournaments right, left and centre has become the fashion, led by FIFA in ballooning the World Cup in the future from 32 teams to 48. This change has been confirmed for 2026 but Infantino wants FIFA Council and then congress in Moscow in June to bring the expansion forward to Qatar 2022.

Hence expanding the Club World Cup and launching a Nations League fits FIFA’s pattern and promises vast new financial resources to fund its politically-charged worldwide development programme. This would fulfil one of Infantino’s two major manifesto promises in 2016 while his expansion of the World Cup has already fulfilled the other.

Re-election ambition

On that basis – keeping his financial promises – Infantino can look forward to re-election next year. However clarification remains needed on the provenance of the $25bn proposal being led by Japan’s Softbank which happens to own 29pc of China’s Alibaba.

UEFA leaders are so disturbed by the FIFA president’s projected land grab that some – unofficially and informally – are starting to consider whether they could run a candidate against him next year.

In this aim they have perceived cautious encouragement from African irritation at the perceived manoeuvring against Morocco of ‘FIFA Central’ in the nation’s 2026 World Cup bidding battle against the United States and junior partners Canada and Mexico.

FIFA’s bidding evaluation task force provoked further African concerns by insisting on a return visit to Morocco later this week to review unspecified unresolved details in the bid book and on the ground.

Infantino still holds most of the cards but maybe no longer all of the trumps.

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