Fifa’s wooing of China is just the latest in a long line of Gianni Infantino’s guilty crushes

We all have a ‘type’. For some, it’s blondes. For others it’s sleeve tattoos, or cute cheek dimples, or guys in indie bands. In the case of Infantino, he seems to have a particular thing for authoritarians

Gianni Infantino is building Fifa's relations with China (Getty )

May this column be one of the first to offer its warmest congratulations to China on winning the vote to host the Fifa 2021 Club World Cup. And a lovely touch too by the Fifa Council to honour the cherished tradition of Chinese electoral politics, by only having a single candidate. Still, as the old proverb almost goes, you can only beat what’s not put in front of you.

In retrospect, the decision to award Fifa’s flagship club competition to a country with no prior record of excellence in club football probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. For starters, the fact that the decision was being announced in Shanghai should have been a dead giveaway. And then, of course, you have the identity of the man making the announcement: president Gianni Infantino, who in his three years in the job has displayed, shall we put it, certain preferential character traits.

Look, the guy can’t help it. We all have a ‘type’. For some, it’s blondes. For others it’s sleeve tattoos, or cute cheek dimples, or guys in indie bands. In the case of Infantino, he seems to have a particular thing for authoritarians, whether it’s genuflecting daintily for Vladimir Putin, slipping on his best suit and dousing himself in cologne to visit Donald Trump in the Oval Office, moistening himself in the presence of King Salman of Saudi Arabia, or flying into Pyongyang at late notice to watch North Korea take on South Korea in a World Cup qualifier.

China, then, is simply his latest in a long line of guilty crushes. And like anybody with a fatal weakness for bad boys, Gianni is happy to overlook some of their rougher edges. Which is why, when asked in the subsequent press conference about China’s litany of human rights abuses, its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, its detention of more than a million Uighur Muslims with children being forcibly separated from their parents and sent to “re-education schools”, he looked a little demure. Perhaps you could even sense something stirring within him, the sap beginning to rise, as he grapples with the sweet wrongness of it all. And yet, how can something be wrong when it feels so right?

Of course, Gianni’s no fool. He’s not going to trash his man in public. “It’s not the mission of Fifa to solve the problems of the world,” he said. “We have a social responsibility due to the magnitude and the power that football brings with it. But we don’t do that by attacking, criticising anyone.”

Infantino is no stranger to broadening the game's horizons (EPA)

Perhaps what Gianni’s doing here – and you don’t rise to the top of the world’s most labyrinthine sports governing body without a nose for chicanery – is playing the long game. Behind closed doors, I’m sure he’s banging heads together, slamming his fist on the table, demanding answers on behalf of the oppressed peoples of the world. And definitely not laughing heartily at his hosts’ jokes, or discussing revenue streams while sipping on a glass of artesian glacier water flavoured with ocelot’s tears, served by a young woman secretly fearing for her life.

That it’s not necessarily Fifa’s responsibility to make the world a better place will, nevertheless, come as something of a surprise to some people. Perhaps even to the organisation itself, which three years ago released a document entitled “Fifa 2.0: The Vision for the Future”, which stated: “Football can be a progressive force for good. Institutions must be able to address issues that have not previously been part of their equation: the threat of terrorism, health and wellness, workers’ rights and global warming, to name only a few. Football can be a leader and shape change.”

Meanwhile, on the kids’ section of Fifa’s website – a page you can only assume is ever visited in error by teenagers searching for Ultimate Team Bronze Packs – you can find the following mission statement: “Football’s popularity can help make the world a better place. Use the power of football to promote peace and equality. Make the world better through football.”

And never let it be said that Fifa doesn’t talk a good game on human rights. After all, it was only in 2017 that it introduced its new human rights policy to vet prospective tournament hosts: the sort of thing corporate institutions do to try and convince themselves they have an intrinsic morality, like a robot trying to teach itself the concept of romance by playing Dean Martin records.

Last year in Zurich, meanwhile, Infantino claimed that the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar – a place where, hang on, let me just check… yep, construction workers are still dying! – had actually improved matters. “Without the World Cup, these debates would not have happened, and the improvements which happened would not have happened either,” Infantino insisted. In the same way, I suppose, you could say the Hindenburg sparked a lively debate on airship safety. It’s a line of reasoning, to be sure.

Perhaps Infantino is just playing the long game? (Getty ) (Getty)

Naturally, Gianni isn’t putting his heart out there for nothing. This is, after all, a mutually beneficial relationship, and certainly access to the world’s biggest market is a pretty tasty windfall. It’s the same logic that has led the International Olympic Committee to award the 2022 Winter Olympics to Beijing, that has taken countless European clubs on lucrative Chinese pre-season tours, that recently forced the NBA to slap down the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey after his tweet in support of the Hong Kong protesters set off a wave of fury in China. Still, who hasn’t dated someone with a rotten temper?

And this latest romance appears a keeper. Fifa already have a sponsorship deal in place with Chinese conglomerate Wanda, and are trying to encourage a money-spinning Chinese bid for the 2030 World Cup, which by that point will probably feature so many teams that China is the only country left in the world big enough to host it. And now the expanded Club World Cup, which is poised to feature 24 teams, including the four most recent winners of the Champions League and Europa League, which will include Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.

Perhaps, in a weird way, this makes sense after all. After all, the new competition will be, as a beaming Infantino boasted, “the club football event which will generate the highest revenue per match”. So there. Gianni doesn’t care what you think of his new bae. They may make an odd couple, this bald Swiss lawyer and the world’s most powerful nation-state, but ultimately they share the same values, the same hopes, the same dreams. And ultimately, isn’t that the most important thing?