Gianni Infantino accused of blackmail as brutal FIFA criticism takes beautiful flip
FIFA have been hit with accusations of blackmail by a member of Jordan’s royal family and FA president to support Gianni Infantino
FIFA and Gianni Infantino have been hit with accusations of blackmail(Image: (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images))
FIFA have been shockingly accused of blackmail by Jordan’s Prince Ali Al Hussein with their FA president claiming that he was informed at the World Cup his nation would be helped if he backed Gianni Infantino.
The 56-year-old has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the huge backlash to his proposal of selling World Cup stakes to private investors.
Infantino and FIFA released a statement last week announcing their plans were no longer going ahead following major opposition from other governing bodies. However, the saga has rumbled on and arguably got much worse for Infantino with Prince Ali revealing that attempts of blackmail were made against Jordan.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Jordan’s Prince Ali Al Hussein
“For months, FIFA has been refusing to help us on any of these or other matters- until it was verbally communicated to me during the World Cup that if I endorsed Infantino it would go a long way to helping our FA out,” he wrote on X.
“We pride ourselves in Jordan in upholding ethical values. We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now. But the whole situation amounts to blackmail and we refuse to give in to that.”
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His full post read: “There is no shortage of issues regarding FIFA. Let me start by clarifying what some of these are from an FA perspective, in particular that of Jordan going into a World Cup for the first time. We are a small country with a minimal budget for our FA and had to deal with enormous hurdles.
Claims of blackmail have been made to support Gianni Infantino
“First, getting our fans into the USA: not all were granted VISAS, even though they had tickets -which we also know were sold at exorbitant prices.
“Secondly, we are being taxed by the US govt through FIFA for our participation. Money that should go to players and staff.
“This was not the case for those who played and set up camp in Canada and Mexico. But we happened to be in the USA so now we face these huge costs in taxes for having participated. Thirdly we have been waiting for reward money for our players since December for the Arab cup in Qatar, which is a FIFA event.
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“The money our team should receive for having reached the final has not been delivered yet, while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve.”
Despite the reversal, his job remains at risk with FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom slamming his proposal in a leaked email
Arsene Wenger has also recently spoken out against Infantino after the former Arsenal boss, who has been at FIFA since 2019, was criticised of staying quiet on the controversy.
