There are very few people in world football who seem completely unbothered by criticism, and Gianni Infantino is right at the top of that very short list. Ten years into his reign as FIFA president, the Swiss-Italian figurehead has survived enough controversy to fill several very uncomfortable autobiographies, and the current storm over Trump's political meddling in football looks unlikely to change that.
The Folarin Balogun situation — where the USA appeared to benefit from some suspiciously convenient eligibility decisions that nudged him away from representing England or France — has given European football associations plenty to shout about. And shout they have. UEFA and several member federations are not happy, and the optics of an American president seemingly having a word in FIFA's ear ahead of a World Cup on American soil are, to put it politely, not great.
But here is the thing. European anger at FIFA is basically a permanent condition at this point. It flares up, people make strong statements, some strongly worded letters get written, and then everyone gets back to qualifying for the next tournament. The votes that keep Infantino in power do not mostly come from Europe. They come from Africa, Asia, CONCACAF, and South America, where FIFA's development money talks loudly and European moral outrage talks considerably less so.
Infantino has spent a decade building exactly the kind of coalition that makes him very difficult to dislodge. He knows where the votes are, he knows how to keep those federations onside, and he knows that Europe, for all its financial muscle, does not have the numbers to boot him out on its own. It would need a proper united front across multiple confederations, and that simply is not happening.
Could this controversy build into something bigger over time? Maybe. But right now it looks like another chapter in a long book of things that were supposed to finish Infantino and did not. He has seen it all before and is probably not losing much sleep.
Let me know your thoughts.