- Guardian newspaper’s having a laugh – at our expense
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By Tony Attwood
I know, I know, I don’t write about Fifa and Uefa because all they do is take away Arsenal’s players, run them into the ground in pointless international matches and hand them back saying “be sure to have them ready by next time”…. But now even I have to notice was the crazies at Wembley are doing.
Of course it is Infantino who has caught them off guard. After decades of worshiping the very earth that Fifa owns, and daily taking their words to be those of FOOTBALL ITSELF the media at least in England are caught out as some have dared to challenge and declare that Fifa and its anointed are not as almighty as previously thought.
Of course much of what is going on is Infantino’s fault – he taunted the media people with saying, “those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens spreading hate and false rumours.” That was a damn stupid thing to say. I can have a bash at the media because although Untold has a dedicated following, many of whom dislike Fifa and its control as much as I do, we only rarely actually influence anything.
Or at least that is what I thought until Uefa actually said they didn’t care what Infantino did, they’d had enough. Not as much “enough” as we have had, perhaps, because we have had enough of international bodies taking Arsenal’s players, injuring them and sending them back home with demands that they are fully operational by the next international.
And yes the FBI did run an inquiry into Fifas lunatic expenditure and revealed what we had all suspected anyway: Fifa cannot be trusted to spend a single penny properly.
Did the media really believe that the resignation of Blatter meant the Fifa was now ok? Does the media believe that those of us who have spent our lives going to football matches approve of the fact that time and again we can’t go to watch our Premier League club because half its players have been nicked by whatever country they align to? And when we can some of them are still not there because they were injured on “international duty”?
Blatter of course is now gone but as we now know countries only vote for those people in Fifa who agree to give them a world cup in the near future.
But really that remains a side issue. The main point is that players go swanning off to play for what ever country they have chosen to play for, rather than their club – and it is all paid for by those of us who go to watch club matches.
And think how this goes around – as we are reminded in the Guardian today. The Berne federal prosecutor, Michael Lauber, said Platini was half way between being “a witness and a suspect”. Up stepped Infantino while Lauber “became attorney general of Switzerland only to resign after secretly meeting Infantino while investigating Fifa,” (the Guardian).
Infantino became president of Fifa by defeating a man accused of torturing of pro-democracy campaigners thanks to the work of the president of the US Soccer Federation, who in return gave North America (mostly the USA) the 2026 World Cup, (although Trump later claimed the credit). The USA is now the focus of Trump’s support and has started hunting down what the Guardian calls “dodgy South American broadcast rights deals.” As they also note, the legal representatives of Fifa has as its senior partner a former US attorney general who has spoken in praise of the ethical behaviour of Fifa. Those seemingly doing grand work in uncovering corruption have been invited to leave the building while Infantino simply passes decrees that suit him – until he got caught promoting the sale of the world cup and games where the rules could be changed (red cards, hydration breaks, Trump’s peace prize, the Fifa office in Trump Tower…)
The whole state of affairs has gone so far that individual reforms are no longer possible, which I guess is why Uefa has had enough and pulled out. Mind you, such a move won’t make me like international matches in which countries take our players, run them into the ground and then hand them back telling the clubs to have them ready for the next international. I support Arsenal and so I support club football not internationals. But at least the on-going chaos gives me hope that ultimately someone in the clubs will simply say “No!” to the whole wretched mess than is international football, and say, “OK if supporters of league teams really want these games they can have them, but only on the terms the league teams dictate.
Now that would be a step forward.
