‘YOU GOTTA SPREAD THE WORD’
It’s been another busy week for Gianni Infantino. The Fifa head honcho spent Sunday in Rabat looking slightly sheepish as he stood alongside Morocco’s Prince Moulay Rachid. After trying his best not to hand the Afcon trophy to Senegal’s players, Big G moved front and centre again to console Brahim Díaz and present him with the award for the worst penalty ever taken tournament’s top scorer. Having reassured Díaz that, as president of Fifa, he makes colossal errors of judgment all the time and nobody seems to mind, Infantino then jetted back to his Alpine lair to check on the chances of Morocco and Senegal meeting at the Geopolitics World Cup.
Speaking of the GWC, the usual petty gripes of extortionate ticket prices, inefficient transport links and a state-sponsored hostile environment in the USA USA USA had to take a back seat this week. With Donald Trump threatening to forcefully annex Greenland – the Danish-owned territory that gave the football world Jesper Grønkjær – Uefa suits meeting in Budapest were forced to pause a particularly lavish buffet to discuss a response. The spectre of a European boycott loomed briefly on the horizon, before Trump apparently lost interest in the whole idea. Still, Fifa kept curiously silent, having produced a statement on Sunday backing the award of its peace prize to Trump despite his emerging enthusiasm for invading other countries.
Infantino’s relationship with European football’s grands fromages could best be described as uneasy. Several delegates walked out when he turned up late for his own annual congress in May, after some very public hobnobbing with Trump and Middle East leaders. With 16 European teams taking part at the GWC, an appearance on home turf in Davos looked like a good opportunity to smooth things over. Infantino is a true disruptor at heart and instead decided the time was right to take a few swings. As part of a largely irrelevant defence of a Human Rights World Cup with “virtually no incidents” in 2022, Infantino added: “For the first time in history, no Brit was arrested during a World Cup. Imagine!” It’s the kind of comment that will bristle even staunch “stick to football” England fans, who might be inclined to respond in the Self-Righteous style. Oi, Infantino! We admire your ability to cosy up to autocrats and oligarchs the world over, but your barely disguised disdain for match-going fans is a step too far! And besides, we’re pretty sure no British fans were arrested at USA 94.
“It was a party, and the next one will be exactly the same,” Infantino Pitbulled, referring to a tournament that contributed towards at least 6,500 migrant workers losing their lives. On the GWC, he added: “The tickets are not cheap … I was hammered because of the prices,” suddenly sounding like a cowboy builder with no control of his overheads. “And the main critics were from Germany and England, of course.” Those Europeans, with their rich football heritage and fan-led initiatives to keep the gilded, hollowed-out soul of the game from floating entirely away from its roots. Fans of Senegal, Africa’s new champions, could face months of jumping through hoops just to get into the USA USA USA. Where is the gratitude? The Football Supporters’ Association was quick to hit back at Infantino’s latest outburst in a concise statement. “While we’ve got Mr Infantino’s attention, we’d like to point out that rather than making cheap jokes about our fans, he should concentrate on making cheap tickets.” They’re right, of course, but we won’t hold our breath.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I kind of think of this as like going away for college like all my friends did … living in a different place without my family is completely different from anything I’ve experienced before. It’s a lot colder here. The city is very different from LA too. So, there has been a little bit to adjust to” – Alyssa Thompson gets her chat on with Sophie Downey about adapting to life under slate-grey skies at Chelsea and how her career has been a bit like going off to study.
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Thomas Frank ascribes Tottenham’s knack issues to being ‘cursed or something like that’, heedless of the traditional remedy of a judicious sacrifice” – Nick Coupland.
Best uberkacktor (yesterday’s Football Daily letters)? Surely to be the best own goal the scorer must forget which way they are playing. I give you the finest of the genre” – Haydn Pyatt.
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Not normally being one who fully reads, let alone bothers to write in response to owt written in your daily diatribe, yesterday’s edition has sparked my wrath and I’ve finally decided that I must concoct – with my left thumb – a ‘letter’. You quoted that well-known actor Timotheéeeeee Chalamet paying homage to the ‘English north-east accent’. Excited by the statement, hailing from Sunderland, I started to read … only to learn he was referring to the Hull accent. Since when has Hull been in the north east? Have you ever been further north than Leeds, or Manchester? Please learn some geography and realise that the north east starts (probably) north of the River Tees, passes the Rivers Wear and Tyne, and actually reaches the Scottish Borders. Within that magnificent region there are probably 10 distinct accents and not one ‘actor’ could master one of them, let alone all – take Vera as an example” – Kev Richardson.
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