2 hours ago
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Emma Kemp
July 1, 2026 — 5:00am
Gianni Infantino has been active on Instagram this past month. His posts (or, more likely, the posts of a social media team possessing an uncanny likeness) number, on average, several a day and take his 4.7 million followers to the chimerical place the FIFA president appears to inhabit.
“Congratulations to @canmnt,” begins the caption on one from Monday morning following Canada’s 1-0 win over South Africa, “on making history and qualifying for the Round of 16 for the first time by winning the first FIFA World Cup Round of 32 game ever!”
It is impossible – I tried – to read this sentence without adopting the voice of a four-year-old child.
This is world football’s great leader, tugging on your trousers to get your attention, because you simply must be informed that “ice-cream tastes the best EVER!” and “that tree is the tallest EVER!” and “Spider-Man does the craziest backflip EVER!”
A few days ago, we also had: “173 goals and counting – a new record in FIFA World Cup history!” (logic says that is bound to happen when you add 50 per cent more teams, but don’t be fooled because this actually has more to do with “excitement and attacking prowess”).
And right before that, a collage of the tournament’s most recognisable players (all the usual suspects): “ONLY FIFA can bring the greatest stars together to shine on one single stage: the world’s biggest stage: the FIFA WORLD CUP 2026!”
Infantino’s Insta is truly fantastical. A perfect package of propaganda dressed up as guileless zeal. All thumbs-ups and high-fives and that jaundiced tinge of moneyed elite.
If he lived in fairytale land – there’s no reason at this point to believe he resides anywhere else – he might be Puss in Boots. Not the cute version from Shrek, but still a protagonist specialising in trickery and deceit to gain power and wealth.
And this is where the audience is thrown. Because if Infantino is not really a preschool-aged human but an anthropomorphic cat, then maybe he is using his small-child voice as a means of condescension. Maybe we are the children in this power dynamic. Us, the six billion global broadcast consumers (another record), being led blindly through one of the most captivating football tournaments we’ve witnessed (EVER).
To which we may muse: what is the problem here?
After all, the expanded 48-team format about which we spent so long complaining is producing unpredictability and chaos that does not feel like a dilution in quality. Cape Verde have stolen our hearts, and Paraguay have eliminated Germany on penalties. The stands have not been empty, as feared, but full to the brim across all three co-hosts: the United States, Canada and Mexico.
This is, to quote another Infantino Instagram post, “the highest attended tournament in competition history!”
The tension lies in the next part of the same caption, wherein four-year-old Infantino voice attributes the unprecedented attendance of 3,605,357 spectators to “football’s ability to bring people together to celebrate, feel joy, and share emotions that unite”, before stressing “what is most important is that people continue to have fun and create memories for life”.
Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan definitely created memories for life when, upon landing in Miami, Africa’s 2025 referee of the year was questioned in a small room for 11 hours then placed in a holding cell for several more, before being put on a flight back out of the country.
Iraq’s vice-captain Aymen Hussein also created memories for life when he was held at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and questioned for almost seven hours, as did the team’s official photographer Talal Salah when he was held for 10 hours and ultimately denied entry.
It’s fair to say Iran’s national team created memories for life throughout what captain Mehdi Taremi labelled a “disaster World Cup” – a group-stage campaign plagued not only by the months of uncertainty, recrimination and protests around the war in the Middle East but also the rushed set-up of a base camp in Mexico. Head coach Amir Ghalenoeia was vocal about his perceived “really terrible” treatment by the US, who rejected the visas of some support staff and restricted how long the squad could stay in the country before and after games.
This is before getting into the weeds of FIFA’s gluttonous grab for revenue through obscene ticket costs and mid-match advertising dressed up as hydration breaks, along with climate impact, heat safety and Infantino’s relentless obsequiousness towards Donald Trump and grotesque embracing of the MAGA movement.
This is the cognitive dissonance of enjoying the World Cup. Where we, the viewers, are forced into a quadrennial moral compromise. Years of criticism aimed at the behaviour of FIFA and its host nations are forgotten as soon as the first ball is kicked. This is not a new occurrence. Infantino has spent his entire tenure both preaching and breaching the statutes of the organisation he runs.
The build-up to Russia 2018 centred around concern over an authoritarian state as host, human rights and freedom of political expression issues, and anti-LGBT policies, not to mention Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The tournament itself was widely enjoyed, and FIFA was held to little account when Russia subsequently launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine in blatant violation of the United Nations Charter.
The 12 years leading up to Qatar 2022 were overshadowed by arguably the most forceful ethical examination and condemnation in World Cup history, headlined by the deaths of and poor working conditions for migrant labourers, women’s rights, LGBT rights and sportswashing.
Infantino, it must be said, was not president when corruption allegations dogged FIFA’s awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments to Russia and Qatar respectively. But he did spend the several years after his appointment becoming close with Qatar’s autocratic ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and delivered his most controversial moment just before the tournament, delivering a marathon press conference speech accusing Western countries of applying double standards in criticising Qatar and demanding they reflect on their own historical records.
Then, of course, the football started. We all watched it and enjoyed it, and have heard little about the welfare of Qatar’s migrant workers since. Not that the media has had much of a chance to ask. Infantino is notorious for holding very few genuinely open press conferences, meaning scarce opportunities for sustained, unscripted questioning about all of these issues. He held his first in three years a fortnight ago and, when pressed on Artan’s deportation, told media to “chill, relax”.
It was real-life condescension to match the filtered condescension of his social media presence, despite last year’s declaration that, despite widespread “misconception out there … everyone will be welcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States for the FIFA World Cup”.
Infantino’s complicity and duplicity with whichever host nation stands in front of him is more than disquieting, and appears to align with FIFA’s awarding of the 2034 World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia.
