August 12 – The protests against Gianni Infantino’s leadership of FIFA now reached the terraces as Europe’s club season starts to get into full swing.
Lyon fans unveiled a banner saying ‘INFANTINO ASSASSINO’ and a second saying ‘FIFA MAFIA’ during their Champions League qualifier against Sparta Prague on Tuesday night.
A message that reflected the general feeling of football fans worldwide as they have watched with horror as Infantino has turned the game into a political tool with his courting of US president Donald Trump
Not even Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president and regime leader that Infantino replaced and says he cleaned up, sparked such fury in the stands of European football. But then Blatter didn’t try to sell the game off for profit to private investors, and potential personal enrichment.
The much-maligned Blatter was in fact wary of private equity investment in football and frequently praised the German 50+1 model that keeps club ownership in the hands of the original member associations who hold at least 50% plus one vote (a majority) of the voting rights in the professional club.
The anti-Infantino banner was unveiled by members of the Lyon fan group the Bad Gones. Lyon fans know how badly wrong private equity investment can go, having suffered over the past three seasons with financial irregularities within John Textor’s Eagle Football Holdings multi-club ownership group. Textor’s ownership tenure saw the club variously sanctioned with relegation die to financial irregularity (twice but overturned at the last minute) as well as the threat of losing their place in the Europa League (they stayed in but Crystal Palace, where Textor had a minority stake, were sacrificed).
The banner was unfurled at the Virage Nord inside the Groupama Stadium. Lyon won 3-0 to complete a 4-2 aggregate win.
The last time football fans took to the streets to protest against the greed of private ownership was over the European Super League proposal. The furious fan backlash saw protests outside club stadia that sparked political comment and a rapid withdrawal of the clubs who had signed up to be part of the new league.
Infantino has subsequently been identified as a supporter of the league and of having negotiated a ‘golden share’ position for FIFA in its formation. At the time he denied any involvement.
On Monday the leaders of Uefa, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Concacaf issued a hard-hitting joint statement that called for Infantino’s resignation said that he had ‘deceived’ member associations and confederations over the plan for the privately funded newco FIFA Football Enterprise, and demanded full accountability.
Now it appears the fans are having their say.
Infantino is still to respond the statement from the confederations. Most recently he has fled to jurisdictions where he feels he has the most support, having been in Morocco for the King’s birthday and where he summoned a small number of his most loyal staff for a private meeting, before running to Colombia where he attended the inauguration of new president Abelardo de la Espriella.
His current whereabouts are unknown. What is known is that he will not be far from his Qatari paid-for jet.
Contact the writer of this story at paul.nicholson@insideworldfootball.com