President Trump doesn’t take calls from a loser

The rise and call of Gianni Infantino is truly a delicious modern morality tale. Or maybe that should be immorality. Infantino had made it to the top of world football. He was a president. Just like the man he so admires in the White House, Donald Trump. Two presidents together. Peas in a pod. Mighty. Powerful. Masterful. And what a job Infantino had done at cultivating Donald. He admired him, flattered him, emulated him, schmoozed and abased himself before the leader of the USA. And if you are to judge a man by his actions and not just his words, look what Infantino had done to be in Donald’s good graces. He had given the US President the first ever Fifa Peace Prize, after the Nobel Prize committee had inexplicably overlooked Trump’s claim to their honour. When USA striker Folarin Balogun was given a red card during the World Cup, Trump made calls to Infantino and suddenly all the rules and principles of the game were swept aside to have his one-match ban suspended. Greater love, and all that. “Respect for independent institutions and the rule of law is what protects the integrity of our competitions and the credibility of Fifa at all times,” Infantino said after the outcry which followed. But most of all, Infantino – with that look of a boiled egg that a mischievous child has taken a felt tip pen to and drawn two dots for eyes, a little snub nose and a straight line for a mouth – wanted to be like Donald. He wanted to be able to act like Donald, with that insouciant disregard for what his critics might say. He wanted to behave with impunity. He had piloted a successful World Cup, one that brought in record revenues. Surely the future was his to define? And so with gusto and a carpe diem brio it was time to step it up a gear. Flog off 20 per cent of Fifa’s commercial rights to private investors, really flex the marketing and commercial potential of the tournament. Make everyone – including himself – a lot richer in the process. After all isn’t that what has happened to Donald Trump since he returned to the presidency at the beginning of 2025? Don’t the latest financial disclosures show that Trump is now $2bn richer than he was before he returned to the White House? Is anyone batting an eyelid at the way that Trump’s presidency appears to have enriched him and his family, something never seen before in the 250-year history of the presidency of the US? Infantino wanted only a tiny fraction of that. Chicken feed. Just look at how Donald Trump has trampled over Congress and usurped so many of its powers. Look at the way he has intimidated the media, or the legal profession. Look at the egregious sycophancy of all his cabinet, where each tries to outdo the other in their toe curling paeans of praise to the grinning, imperial President. Trump does whatever he wants to, and who stops him? Yet Infantino has had to abandon his plans in the face of criticism, and football associations across Europe are withdrawing their support for him as Fifa president. This is where we get to the modern immorality tale, and it is this: you can be as Trumpian as you like, but only Donald Trump can get away with being Donald Trump. If Infantino had looked at recent history he would see that. Look at all those other wannabes who thought they could suspend the rules of public life and act without the constraints of gravity, only to come crashing down in a heap when their Trumpian antics were exposed. What Boris Johnson did as PM was nothing compared to Trump. But one fell by the wayside; the other was returned to office. Trump has been impeached twice and twice acquitted by the Senate; been accused of sparking a riot on 6 January 2021 that rocked US democracy to its foundations; been found guilty in a court of criminal offences; been found liable in a civil case of sexual abuse; and yet, in November 2024, he was triumphantly returned to power. What foolishness and vanity led Infantino to think he could behave in the same way? What malevolent threats could he issue to recalcitrant football associations to fall into line, or else – something that is very much a Trump forte? Why hadn’t he tried to lay the groundwork, why hadn’t he sought to cajole? Why hadn’t he assessed where the most vocal opposition might come from and do his best to mitigate it? How did he snooker himself so easily or foolishly? As an operation it was clown-show stuff. Now it is being reported that Gianni Infantino is trying to recruit Donald Trump to help save him in his position as Fifa president. He’s apparently been calling the White House, but the US President isn’t picking up. Again, if you’d studied the history books, Gianni, you would know this: Donald Trump does not surrender his own political capital to help others survive. Look at the total lack of loyalty he’s shown to cabinet members who might have let him down in this way or that. Sentimentality does not play big with the guy in Pennsylvania Avenue. You’re on your own, Gianni, in a mess of your own making.