Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News
January 21 – Who says sport and politics don’t combine? Among the many scores of dignitaries attending Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony was FIFA boss Gianni Infantino who has admitted the pair share a “nice friendship.”
Nothing maybe incorrect with that, nonetheless a lot it would make opponents of each leaders cringe.
But the sight of Infantino showing to applaud components of Trump’s extremely provocative, headline-grabbing inauguration speech, not least when he talked about taking again the Panama Canal, actually raised eyebrows.
Possibly we shouldn’t be stunned since Trump had beforehand namechecked Infantino and the 2026 World Cup at a rally forward of his inauguration and the FIFA President, who nowadays lives in Miami along with his household, responded by calling it “an unbelievable honour”.
“That is FIFA on the most of its respect; being talked about by the brand new President of the USA of America in his victory rally, in his victory speech, is exclusive, is gorgeous,” mentioned Infantino.
The mutual back-slapping received much more cringeworthy when Infantino appeared to match Trump’s “Make America Nice Once more” rhetoric to his personal FIFA aspirations.
“I wish to thank President Trump, with whom I’ve an important friendship, and to guarantee him that, collectively, we’ll make not solely America nice once more, but in addition the whole world, in fact, as a result of soccer – or soccer – unites the world,” mentioned Infantino.
The present FIFA boss, who like Trump has a behavior of getting what he desires (expanded Membership World Cup subsequent summer season, Saudi Arabia 2034 World Cup and many others) actually appears to have a liking for forging shut relations with authoritarian (some may declare deranged) heads of state. Again in 2019, Vladimir Putin awarded him with the Order of Friendship medal after Russia staged the World Cup the earlier yr.
A FIFA spokesperson was quoted as saying: ‘The FIFA President accepted an invite to attend the inauguration of the President of the USA on 20 January 2025. The FIFA President commonly accepts invites to satisfy world leaders as FIFA develops and promotes the sport globally.”
