In “United Passions” — which really should have been called “Balls” — Blatter is played by Tim Roth, a fine actor who admitted he took the role to pay for his kids to go to college. If the movie was, heaven help us, ever updated to include Infantino’s tenure, surely the role would go to either Stanley Tucci or the ghost of late Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Infantino has, you will doubtless be aware, decided to sell football off to the highest bidder, with FIFA publishing a proposal that would privatize the World Cup’s commercial operations. A venture capital firm headed by Josh Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is lined up as the lead investor in the proposed deal. Of course it is. The scheme is known as FIFA Forward Enterprise or FFE — although FFS seems rather more appropriate.
I, for one, am looking forward to the Raytheon World Cup of 2038 in South Sudan, where the 18-karat gold trophy depicting two human figures holding up the Earth is replaced by a cheap plastic bobblehead of Trump with his pants around his ankles.
But not everyone is so keen on Infantino’s plan. Glenn Micallef, the EU’s sports commissioner, pointed out that football “isn’t baseball,” which is very perceptive of him. It’s also not cross-country skiing, knitting or a cauliflower.
Micallef’s point is, of course, that football hasn’t — and shouldn’t — reach the level of commercialization of American sports, although it had a damn good go during this summer’s World Cup with the introduction of hydration breaks sponsored by Powerade.
But the further monetization of sports feels inevitable; it is entertainment, after all. Will politics go the same way? When, for example, will we see EU summits sponsored by Red Bull, the European Commission midday briefing brought to you by Xanax, or Germany sponsored by sausages in a glass jar?