[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-infantino-tenure-fifa-trump-controversy-power":82,"category-counts-nav":97,"related-infantino-tenure-fifa-trump-controversy-power":107},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":95,"_path":96},"Ten Years In, Infantino Still Bends Football To His Will","infantino-tenure-fifa-trump-controversy-power","football","Football: Feature","Marcus Wright","Ten years into his Fifa presidency, Gianni Infantino has reshaped the game while alienating European football and cosying up to Trump.","2026-07-31 07:40:40","5 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F696c\u002Flive\u002F7421ae40-123f-11f1-87d9-cda4cc68a607.jpg",[93,15,94],"FIFA","Politics","## A Decade of Disruption\n\nGianni Infantino marks 10 years as Fifa president in a position of remarkable strength, despite spending that decade clashing with player unions and European football's governing bodies. He inherited an organisation in crisis after the Sepp Blatter-era corruption scandals. He transformed it into a personal vehicle for expansion, commercial growth, and geopolitical influence. The man who campaigned as a reformer now operates as the most powerful single figure in world football. His tenure has been defined by confrontations with those who traditionally held the sport's levers.\n\n## Courting Power Beyond Football\n\nInfantino's relationship with Donald Trump stands as one of the most commercially visible threads of his presidency. He secured the 2026 World Cup for North America during the first Trump administration, a bid that relied heavily on political alignment with the White House. The Fifa president has been photographed at Trump rallies, golf outings, and official functions. He has framed his alliance as good business sense. For a figure whose role involves selling the world's most popular sport to the world's largest economies, the logic is cold and pragmatic rather than ideological. This diplomatic posture extends beyond Washington. Infantino cultivated ties with Saudi Arabia's leadership, helping pave the way for the 2034 World Cup awarded to the kingdom without a contested vote. He routinely appears alongside heads of state at events that have little to do with football administration.\n\n## War With European Football\n\nThe relationship between Fifa and Uefa has never been warm during the Infantino era. It fractured repeatedly over the expanded Club World Cup, the biennial World Cup proposal, and what European officials viewed as Fifa's unilateral decision-making. Domestic leagues, particularly England's Premier League, pushed back against calendar congestion engineered from Zurich. Player unions argued that Infantino's expansion projects treated footballers as disposable assets in a global commercial cycle. The biennial World Cup idea collapsed under sustained European resistance. But the Club World Cup survived, scheduled for summer 2025 with 32 teams. Infantino framed it as progress for global football. European clubs saw it as another fixture burden amid an already bloated calendar.\n\n> \"He has clashed with unions and European football, but after 10 years as Fifa president he remains in a powerful position.\"\n\nThat tension cuts to the core of how Infantino operates. Each battle leaves him weaker among European football's old guard but stronger among the federations that actually swing votes at FIFA Congress.\n\n## The Coalition That Keeps Him There\n\nInfantino's base of power lies with the 211 member associations that elect the Fifa president. His strategy has been consistent and transactional. Direct financial payments from FIFA's reserves to smaller federations. Increased development grants. Infrastructure funding. For associations in Africa, Asia, and the CONCACAF region, the Infantino years brought tangible financial benefits that outweighed ideological concerns about governance or calendar density. European football's influence at the ballot box is relatively small despite its commercial dominance. Uefa holds 55 votes out of 211. Infantino's coalition strategy has rendered European opposition largely toothless when it comes to the structural decisions of the game. The criticism from Europe unions and leagues rarely translates into losing a floor vote. That structural reality has allowed Infantino to push through his agenda without capitulating to the interests of the continent that generates football's largest revenues.\n\n## The Players Pushed Aside\n\nFifPro, the global players' union, has been one of Infantino's most vocal critics throughout the past 10 years. The union has filed legal challenges over mandatory rest periods, fixture congestion, and what it characterises as Fifa's failure to consult players before expanding competitions. Infantino has dismissed these challenges with the language of development and opportunity. Expanding World Cup slots to 48 teams meant more nations had a realistic path to qualify. More federations. More votes. Conflicting interests. The tension between commercial growth and player welfare has escalated throughout his presidency. Late-season tournaments, international breaks, and the new June-to-July Club World Cup have compressed schedules further.\n\n## How He Operates\n\nInside the Fifa House in Zurich, Infantino runs the organisation with a tight grip. Staff describe a presidency centred on personal control of messaging, media strategy, and relationships with national federation presidents. The marketing deals he has secured have swollen reserves. When he walked into the building in late 2016 as a relatively unknown former Uefa administrator, the organisation was reeling from sponsor departures and FBI raids. Ten years on, sponsors are back. Revenues are up. The investigations of the mid-2010s feel distant to constituents in regions never targeted by American prosecutors.\n\nThe Infantino decade proves that power in global football flows from the ballot box, not from the balance sheet. European football generates the revenue. The rest of the world casts the votes. As long as that structural imbalance holds, Infantino or a successor cut from the same cloth can continue expanding the calendar, selling the game's crown jewels to the highest bidder, and marginalising the concerns of players and domestic leagues. The next World Cup on US soil in 2026 will cement the Trump-era alliance as a defining feature of modern Fifa. The 2025 Club World Cup will test whether European clubs accept the new reality or escalate their resistance. The 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia will validate the geopolitical strategy that has characterised Infantino's entire reign. Ten years in, there is no credible challenger for his position. There is no structural mechanism for European football to reclaim the agenda. The game belongs to the man who counted the votes correctly.","\u002Farticles\u002Finfantino-tenure-fifa-trump-controversy-power",[98,99,100,101,85,102,103,104,105,106],"analysis","basketball","cricket","f1","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[108,122,131],{"id":109,"stem":109,"path":110,"title":111,"category":85,"badge":112,"badgeType":113,"author":114,"authorRole":115,"authorInitials":116,"date":117,"readTime":118,"image":119,"imageAlt":111,"tags":120,"excerpt":121},"morocco-wafcon-hosts-tactical-burden","\u002Farticles\u002Fmorocco-wafcon-hosts-tactical-burden","Morocco's WAFCON hosting burden meets a tactical identity crisis","Football: Analysis","category","Elena Rossi","SportPulse Contributor","ER","2026-07-24 11:07:46","4 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Fimages\u002Fic\u002F240x135\u002Fp0p0n443.jpg","WAFCON, Women's Football, CAF, International Football","Hosting the Women's Africa Cup of Nations forces Morocco to reconcile defensive pragmatism with the attacking ambition required to win a first title.",{"id":123,"stem":123,"path":124,"title":125,"category":85,"badge":55,"badgeType":113,"author":114,"authorRole":115,"authorInitials":116,"date":126,"readTime":127,"image":128,"imageAlt":125,"tags":129,"excerpt":130},"angus-gunn-norwich-la-liga-tactical-redeployment-sweeper-keeper","\u002Farticles\u002Fangus-gunn-norwich-la-liga-tactical-redeployment-sweeper-keeper","Angus Gunn and the Tactical Case for La Liga Redeployment","2026-07-09 00:17:17","8 min read","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fangus-gunn-norwich-la-liga-tactical-redeployment-sweeper-keeper.webp","Premier League, Championship, La Liga, Scottish National Team","Released goalkeeper Angus Gunn's shot-stopping and distribution profile demands a side willing to use him as a false libero rather than a static last line.",{"id":132,"stem":132,"path":133,"title":134,"category":85,"badge":135,"badgeType":136,"author":137,"authorRole":138,"authorInitials":139,"date":140,"readTime":141,"image":142,"imageAlt":134,"tags":143,"excerpt":144},"cody-gakpo-spurs-roberto-de-zerbi-tactical-fit","\u002Farticles\u002Fcody-gakpo-spurs-roberto-de-zerbi-tactical-fit","Why Cody Gakpo Fits Spurs as a Different Kind of Forward","Transfers","tag","Sarah Martinez","Transfer Correspondent","SM","2026-08-08 01:31:15","2 min read","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fcody-gakpo-spurs-roberto-de-zerbi-tactical-fit.webp","Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Transfers","Cody Gakpo is Tottenham's target, but his move depends on whether Roberto de Zerbi wants a creator or a finisher in his front line."]