Colorado, USMNT goalkeeper Zack Steffen has knee surgery, out 4-to-6 weeks
Colorado Rapids and United States Men's National Team goalkeeper Zack Steffen had surgery on his right knee on Tuesday, and the Rapids said he is expected to be sidelined for four-to-six weeks.
Steffen was injured during training with the USMNT in Chicago on Wednesday, causing him to miss the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The Rapids said the operation was on his right medial meniscus.
Steffen lost an opportunity to perhaps regain the U.S. starting spot. The 30-year-old started six of 14 World Cup qualifiers ahead of the 2022 tournament, including the last three, then was left off the World Cup roster by then-coach Gregg Berhalter.
Steffen played his first national team match in nearly three years in a January friendly against Costa Rica and coach Mauricio Pochettino said last month that Matt Turner, the starter since 2022, was not assured of being his No. 1 choice for the Gold Cup. Turner didn't play for Crystal Palace after March 1.
This is the second injury to a goalkeeper on the USMNT in recent weeks, with the first 24-year-old Patrick Schulte. The keeper for MLS' Columbus Crew strained his oblique on May 24.
Matt Freese, 26, made his national debut in goal during Saturday's 2-1 loss to Turkey, while 21-year-old Chris Brady rounds out the remaining goalkeepers on the roster.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Inside the White House, President Trump was on a roll. 'Amazing,' he said. 'He's like somebody who just woke up on Christmas morning as a young child and saw those toys under the tree. And that enthusiasm plays very well, I have to say.' Gianni Infantino threw his head back in laughter before smiling and nodding along, looking delighted by the United States president's description of him. It was the same a couple of months earlier at the launch of a White House Task Force for the 2026 World Cup, when Donald Trump described the FIFA president as 'my great friend' and 'sort of the king of soccer… I guess… in a certain way'. Advertisement He is. Sort of. I guess. In a certain way. As the head of FIFA, football's governing body, Infantino is the most powerful figure in the sport, able to make what sound like wild, off-the-cuff proposals — a 32-team Club World Cup, a 48-team World Cup — and make them a reality while travelling around the world on a Qatari private jet, rubbing shoulders with sporting superstars and heads of state, sharing his adventures with his three million Instagram followers and frequently resembling the excited child of Trump's description. 'Living football, uniting the world through football and making football truly global,' he says on his Instagram profile. He has also taken to describing FIFA as 'an official provider of happiness to humanity'. He has come to be characterised by journalists in his native Switzerland as football's new 'Sonnenkonig' — the sun king, evoking Louis XIV, the vainglorious 18th-century king of France. Infantino's name appears (twice) on the new Club World Cup trophy, designed by luxury jeweller Tiffany & Co. A small team follows him at almost every turn, ready to record his movements for his social media accounts. As the Infantino brand grows, one is reminded of something Aleksander Ceferin, president of European football's governing body UEFA, pointedly said in a press conference a few years back: 'No football administrator, no matter the size of the ego, should think we are the stars of the game — because we are not.' It is all a far cry from the days when Infantino was known primarily as the unsmiling, slightly awkward UEFA bureaucrat who would offer platitudes on stage during Champions League draws ('Galatasaray… the Turkish champions of course, semi-finalists in 1989'). Nobody saw him as FIFA president-in-waiting a decade ago when a succession of corruption scandals brought down Sepp Blatter's regime. Among many of those who worked alongside him at UEFA, there is astonishment at the way Infantino first seized power and quickly learned to embrace it. Advertisement So, who is the real Gianni Infantino? Is this the delightful underdog story of a football-mad guy who overcame prejudice and humble beginnings, as the son of Italian immigrants in Switzerland, to rise to the top of the sport and clean up FIFA? Or is it a Machiavellian story about the pursuit of power, about campaigning hard on a reformist ticket and then allowing the game, once more, to be kicked about like a geopolitical football? With his beloved 32-team Club World Cup about to kick off in Miami this weekend, amid concerns about low ticket sales and player fatigue, The Athletic has spoken to dozens of people within FIFA circles, past and present, to gain a clearer impression of Infantino; of what he has and has not achieved since his election in 2016. We have heard glowing testimonies ('brilliant') from some and withering assessments ('an empty suit') from others. Some of our interviewees were willing to speak publicly, while others did so on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships. We have visited Infantino's home town of Brig-Glis, in the Swiss Alps, to hear from locals, including a family member, and the portrait that emerges is a confusing one — not least because some of those who worked with him previously and happily championed his bid for the FIFA presidency feel he has changed beyond recognition. 'I don't recognise the Gianni I see and hear now,' says one football administrator who worked closely with Infantino at UEFA. 'What I don't know is if this is the real Gianni Infantino or if nine years in this job has done this to him.' Beyond his multi-lingual flair, his energy and his political instincts, one of the few things everyone recognises in him is the wide-eyed enthusiasm that Trump mentioned. Whether for better or worse, whether mingling with footballers or with heads of state, that child-like vigour has never left him. Infantino by name, infantino by nature. They called him 'Piccolo', little one. Gianni Infantino, the youngest of three children, was born in Switzerland in 1970 with health complications and required a blood transfusion in infancy. He told reporters in 2016 that the blood that saved his life came from two donors: one in Bristol, England, and the other in Belgrade, which in those days was the capital of Yugoslavia. Advertisement He was born in Switzerland and survived thanks to English and Serbian blood. But he grew up feeling Italian. His father, Vincenzo, was from Calabria, on the 'toe' of the Italian mainland, and his mother, Maria, from the mountains of eastern Lombardy. They lived together in the northern town of Domodossola, at the foot of the Alps, before leaving in search of a new life in Switzerland. Domodossola is at the Italian end of the 12-mile tunnel that cuts through the Alps under the Simplon Pass. At the Swiss end is the picturesque town of Brig-Glis, seemingly an idyllic setting at the heart of Europe. Infantino's cousin, Daniel Nellen, talks of growing up there 'with this international feeling — you know this internationality from (when you are) young, you know?'. But that new life in Switzerland brought challenges for many migrants from Italy, particularly those who, like Vincenzo, had come from the poorer regions in the south. '(From) The Swiss, we felt this racism,' Nellen tells The Athletic at his hair salon in Brig. 'Gianni had red hair and his skin had freckles. This was not too much of a big problem. The problem more was (being) Italian.' Infantino touched on this in his infamous 'Today I feel…' speech in Qatar on the eve of the men's World Cup in 2022. He spoke about how, faced with discrimination, 'you lock yourself down, you went to your room, you cry'. His family were poor by Brig's affluent standards. Vincenzo worked on the night rail service. 'Work three days, go, stay one night and come back,' Nellen says. 'When he had days off, he worked in the kiosk at the station with Gianni's mother, selling newspapers and cigarettes. Then he would go again with the train to Rome, Paris, Brussels.' Nellen says Infantino's intelligence was 'crazy'. 'Learning was so easy for Gianni,' he says. 'He came home (from school) and the first thing he would do was open up Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian sports newspaper: the results of the games, the matches… sport, sport, sport, football, football, football.' Advertisement Gianni supported the Italian giants Inter, idolising Evaristo Beccalossi and Alessandro Altobelli. His own football ambitions did not progress beyond the third team at FC Brig-Glis, but, as his cousin Nellen puts it, 'he started to organise, look for sponsorship and look for shirts… He liked to organise'. An early glimpse of his appetite for football administration and politics came when he proposed that FC Brig-Glis integrate another team, Folgore, made up of second-generation immigrants, into the club. 'He convinced the president and the other members to vote yes,' Nellen says. 'I don't think that when you are 20 years old, you think about becoming FIFA president. But he said, 'If I'm not good enough (to be a footballer), I want to be the lawyer of the footballer'. Always, his idea was to make something with football.' In the 121-year history of FIFA, only nine men have held the office of president. What are the chances that the last two would be born six miles apart? Blatter, born in Visp, and Infantino belong to different generations and had different academic backgrounds — the former in business and economics from the University of Lausanne, the latter in law from the University of Fribourg — but both were drawn towards what David Conn, in The Fall of the House of FIFA, calls 'the graduate class of Swiss administrators educated to service the forest of sports governing bodies nestling in the country'. Infantino landed a job as legal counsel and general secretary of the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) in the Swiss city of Neuchatel. The work brought him into contact with FIFA, but no role at football's global HQ was forthcoming. At age 30, after two years at CIES, he got a job in UEFA's legal department. Dan O'Toole, UEFA's former brand manager, recalls him as an 'amiable, well-mannered colleague' who 'got on well with whoever I saw him talking to'. Advertisement 'In the early years, we used to go out socially and go around to his house,' O'Toole (not to be confused with the FIFA executive of the same name) tells The Athletic at a cafe on the banks of Lake Geneva near UEFA's headquarters.'He was quiet, if anything. Not shy, just sort of quiet.' An English football executive recalls encountering Infantino in those days and initially finding him so unremarkable that he must be 'one of the bag carriers'. But Infantino came to life in meetings and in the company of senior figures. 'For example, at an airport, surrounded by ExCo (executive committee) members, the way he could hold them all in the palm of his hand by telling jokes in five or six different languages, which to me was off the scale,' O'Toole says. Infantino's stock at UEFA rose under the presidency of legendary French footballer Michel Platini. 'There was quite a meteoric rise through the ranks,' O'Toole says. 'The Gianni I remember was polite, earnest, hard-working, but could be fun, too,' says Alex Horne, general secretary of the English Football Association between 2010 and 2015, in a telephone interview. 'There were times when we wanted one thing, maybe Germany wanted something else, and the others had all their views, too, but Gianni and Theo (Theodoris, UEFA's deputy general secretary) would make it work.' They were an effective trio, but, according to two figures who attended meetings with UEFA at the time, Platini had limited time for his general secretary's views on on-field matters. One area of difference was video assistant referees (VAR); Infantino was a devotee, his boss a committed sceptic. There was no doubt where the power lay. As the Blatter regime down the road at FIFA began to crumble, Platini became the heir apparent. Infantino's best hope, it seemed, was to keep holding on to his boss's coat-tails. By mid-summer of 2015, FIFA was in meltdown. Platini was the overwhelming favourite to take over from Blatter and the race was on to find Platini's successor at UEFA. The strong favourite was Wolfgang Niersbach, the German FA president, who had significant support among the most influential European nations. Advertisement From the outside, Infantino seemed a likely candidate to follow Platini to FIFA and become general secretary. But according to people working at UEFA at the time, that was unlikely to have been Platini's plan. Niersbach, likewise, was planning a new leadership team at UEFA. Infantino's future was suddenly in doubt. So too was Platini's coronation when, in September 2015, Swiss prosecutors opened an investigation into a payment of two million Swiss francs (CHF; $2.43million/£1.8million at today's exchange rates) he received from FIFA four years earlier. Swiss prosecutors alleged that the payment, authorised by Blatter and said to relate to work Platini had carried out between 1999 and 2002, was 'unfavourable to FIFA'. Blatter and Platini have since been cleared of charges relating to the payment, most recently at a Swiss federal criminal appeals court this year, but FIFA's ethics committee banned both men from all football activities in December 2015 for eight years, later reduced to six years on appeal. When Infantino first announced his intention to run for the FIFA presidency, many imagined he was merely an interim candidate while Platini looked to clear his name. But as the February 2016 election drew closer, it became clear that his ambitions were very real. 'He embarked on the most exhaustive campaign,' Greg Dyke, chairman of the English FA between 2013 and 2016, tells The Athletic at a cafe in west London. 'He went everywhere. He was very amusing about it, about the airlines he had been on and the rest of it. I thought he would be a good choice.' Why? 'Because I had always liked him at FIFA,' Dyke says. 'I thought he was straight and a good organiser. International football isn't that full of straight people… and I always felt Infantino was straight.' Infantino launched his campaign in London, joined at Wembley Stadium by big-name coaches (Jose Mourinho, Fabio Capello) and ex-players (Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Clarence Seedorf) and bringing endorsements from others. It was an early glimpse of his contacts at the top end of the game and his willingness to flaunt them. But what really resonated among the FIFA electorate, perhaps more than his pledge to 'clean' FIFA, was Infantino's promise to increase the money distributed to each member association to $5m (£3.7m) over the next four years. 'The money of FIFA is your money,' he told them in his final speech before they cast their votes. It seemed to draw far louder applause than anything he had said about reform, integrity and governance. This extra money, he said, would come from expanding FIFA's existing tournaments. He proposed a 40-team men's World Cup (since revised further to 48) and a 32-team men's Club World Cup. Bigger tournaments would mean a bigger product to sell to broadcasters and commercial partners. Questions about the increased demands on players, in an already congested fixture calendar, were brushed aside. As the results were read out and his victory confirmed, Infantino closed his eyes, clasped his hands and touched his left breast. 'We will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA,' he declared. 'And everyone in the world will applaud us.' Follow the Club World Cup on The Athletic this summer… There is little regard for Blatter or the FIFA regime he presided over, but a familiar observation is that he had a certain old-school charm. By contrast, Blatter's successor is characterised as a man in a hurry, too busy to dwell too long on pleasantries. Infantino is close to some of his staff, but to others at FIFA's Zurich headquarters, he is a remote figure. Advertisement A sense of detachment is inevitable when Infantino spends so much of his time jetsetting, visiting member associations and dotting about FIFA's new offices in Paris, Miami and Singapore. But to some, this reflects a particular modern workplace archetype: so fixated on climbing upwards that he has little time to look down. Some of those close to Infantino refute this description, describing the married father of four as extremely courteous and saying that he enquires about staff members' well-being and families out of genuine interest. Beyond that, they say he is at his most relaxed when talking about football, chatting with friends and colleagues over a beer in an Italian restaurant — or indeed taking a spontaneous trip to watch Millwall play Norwich City while in London for an International Football Association Board (IFAB) meeting in 2023. His obsession with football — and, more than that, football politics — is said to come at the exclusion of much else. One football executive says, 'I've never heard him talk about a book or a movie or mention any other sport. He just lives for this role.' Even those closest to Infantino do not dispute that his demanding nature has ruffled feathers at FIFA. One source describes him as a 'red' personality type: demanding, strong-willed, assertive, dynamic, fast-paced, results-focused, action-oriented. Long-winded or hesitant responses in meetings meet with a curt response. 'He has absolutely no time for bullshit,' one person says. The picture that emerges calls to mind the ruthless, uncompromising, relentless, go-getting C-suite guru of LinkedIn caricature, which was far from his image when he was climbing the corporate ladder at UEFA. Some of those 'red' personality traits are recognised by a former UEFA colleague but back then, he was regarded as more of a 'blue' — analytical, logical, detail-oriented, albeit with a work ethic, ambitious streak and political instinct that many underestimated. 'I don't think it was Gianni's burning ambition at the time (to be FIFA president),' Horne says. 'Maybe he was a great poker player and I misjudged him, but I think he ended up in charge almost by accident.' Upon his election in 2016, Infantino's sister Daniela told Swiss newspaper Der Bund that he was a 'very sensitive, harmonious person' who still called his mother every night. 'He will not suddenly take off and fly to another planet when he comes FIFA president,' she said. 'I don't see him as a careerist who would walk over dead bodies for his success.' Advertisement Thomas Renggli, a journalist who was briefly employed by FIFA under Blatter's presidency, feels Infantino 'was always one step ahead.' 'Nobody expected him to play a role in this game, but I'm pretty sure he had a very smart plan,' he says at a cafe in Zurich. 'He played like chess. The king and queen, they were out of the game — and then all of a sudden, Gianni was there.' In April this year, a high-powered delegation — including U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel — arrived at FIFA's new offices in Coral Gables on the outskirts of Miami. There was, among Infantino and his colleagues, a certain pride in the symbolic nature of these discussions surrounding the Club World Cup and World Cup on U.S. soil — and in how significantly things at FIFA had changed since a three-year FBI investigation led to a 6am raid on the five-star Baur au Lac hotel to arrest seven FIFA executives. The FIFA that Infantino walked into was a byword for corruption. As former FBI director James B Comey said in a statement in 2015, 'undisclosed payments, kickbacks and bribes became a way of doing business'. Late last year, in a statement, FIFA said it had 'transformed from a toxic institution to a respected, trusted and modern governing body'. Infantino, though, was barely a month into the FIFA presidency when he was named in the leaked 'Panama Papers' in relation to broadcast rights contracts he signed while at UEFA with an offshore company. He declared himself 'dismayed' that his integrity was 'being doubted by certain areas of the media'. A UEFA spokesperson said in a statement at the time that the rights were sold following an 'open, competitive, tender process'. In 2020, federal prosecutors announced a separate investigation amid 'indications of criminal conduct' relating to complaints made against Infantino, the former Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber, and Infantino's childhood friend Rinaldo Arnold, a regional prosecutor. The investigation was finally dismissed and closed in 2023, with Infantino declaring 'a full and clear victory for me, for the new FIFA and for justice'. In a statement, he added that 'poor, envious and corrupt people' had been trying to smear his reputation. Advertisement FIFA's own ethics committee — an independent, judicial body within the organisation — had also investigated Infantino over a potential conflict of interest in 2017 when he and his staff travelled in private jets laid on for him in Russia and Qatar. Another investigation in 2016 centred on his alleged billing of FIFA for personal expenses, including mattresses at his home, a stepper exercise machine and flowers. In both cases, the investigatory chamber concluded the ethics code had not been violated. Mark Pieth, who, in 2011, was appointed chair of an independent governance committee to oversee the reform of FIFA, tells The Athletic in a telephone interview that he lost hope in Infantino's regime after the FIFA congress unanimously passed a resolution in May 2016 giving its new council the power to appoint or 'dismiss any office holders' of its various independent committees. Compliance committee chairman Domenico Scala resigned within 24 hours of the congress, which Infantino told Swiss newspaper Le Matin was 'infantile behaviour that belongs in the playground'. Hans-Joachim Eckert, a German judge who had been appointed chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA ethics committee, and Swiss investigator Cornel Borbely were subsequently informed that their services would not be retained. 'Certainly, with the independence of the ethics committee, there was a danger that we would investigate anyone who violated the code and take appropriate measures without fear or favour,' Eckert tells The Athletic via email in May. FIFA says it has always respected the decisions of committee members and denies trying to exert undue influence in any such processes. There was an unedifying episode after a recording was leaked to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2016 of a conversation in which Infantino appeared to describe an offer of a CHF 2million salary as an 'insult'. The FIFA president told his 'enemies want to make me look greedy' and 'these theories are not proven'. His salary has since doubled to nearly $5m. Then there is the prospect of Infantino staying in situ until 2031, which would take him to 15 years, even though FIFA voted in 2016 to restrict presidents to a maximum of three four-year terms. In 2022, he announced the FIFA council had agreed his first term as president would not count towards the three-term limit because, having taken over from Blatter, he only served three years of his first term. Advertisement A senior football administrator, who has worked closely with him, praises Infantino's 'considerable talents' but describes his FIFA presidency as a disappointment. 'These sports leaders are treated like royalty and it goes to their heads,' the administrator says. 'It's like living in a medieval court and their imperious behaviour is rewarded.' FIFA maintains it has undergone a 'deeply rooted governance and financial management reform with a clear focus on transparency', recognised by various other institutions. Some are not convinced.'This organisation never wanted to be reformed,' believes Pieth. 'They talked about reform, but they never had an aspiration to be reformed.' Eckert, too, is damning. 'I can still hear his (Infantino's) speech at the congress: everything will be better, corruption will be fought, football clean. That's why he was elected,' he says. 'I would rather not dwell on the consequences.' At the CONMEBOL Conference Centre in Asuncion, Paraguay, on May 15, the mood was restless. The 75th FIFA Congress was due to start at 9.30am local time and delegates from 210 member associations were in place. But their host was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the delegates got an email telling them the start of congress had been shifted back three hours due to 'unforeseen circumstances'. Infantino was still en route to Asuncion — on a Qatari private jet from Doha, where he had spent the previous days with President Trump, attending meetings and state dinners alongside the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Infantino eventually arrived, apologising for the delay, explaining that 'as president of FIFA, my responsibility is to make decisions in the interests of the organisation' and citing 'an issue with our flight'. Advertisement It prompted a walkout from eight European members of the council, including UEFA president Ceferin. In a statement, European football's governing body expressed dismay that the timetable had been 'changed at the last minute for what appears to be simply to accommodate private political interests' at the expense of the game. It was a remarkable episode — and an embarrassing one for Infantino, inviting further questions about his cosy-looking relationship with Trump. Last month, Infantino was seen nodding approvingly in the Oval Office in May as Trump told reporters that tensions between the U.S. and its 2026 World Cup co-hosts Canada and Mexico would make the tournament 'more exciting' because 'tension is a good thing'. Infantino also laughed along with Trump's proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico 'the Gulf of America' at his inauguration in January. On both occasions, Infantino's reaction caused unhappiness among some on the FIFA council. 'He prefers to meet Trump in Saudi Arabia and doesn't give a damn, to be frank, about his colleagues waiting for them,' Pieth says. 'He makes them wait for three hours to even start a congress. He's so full of himself now.' Some in FIFA circles call it Realpolitik, suggesting Infantino's relationships with Trump and the authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar are entirely pragmatic. He has refuted that line about 'private political interests', calling his relationship with Trump 'crucial' within the context of next year's World Cup — and likewise with Saudi Arabia, as thoughts turn to 2034. One source cites a speech Infantino gave in front of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh last month about the importance of investing in women's football. To be able to do that in Saudi Arabia, whose women's national team only played their first matches in 2022, is considered within FIFA to be an endorsement of Infantino's ability to engage with the kingdom at the highest level. But there is, among others, an unease around the Saudi relationship and the way Infantino and FIFA seemed to clear the way for the kingdom to host the 2034 World Cup. A FIFA evaluation report classed Saudi Arabia's human rights record as only a 'medium' risk, prompting Human Rights Watch to accuse FIFA of 'utter negligence' in its responsibility to the millions of migrant workers who will build the stadiums and infrastructure the tournament requires. Advertisement A joint statement by 35 signatories last month, co-ordinated by London-based human rights group FairSquare, accused FIFA of being 'arguably more poorly governed today than a decade ago'. Among eight examples it cited were a lack of diversity in senior roles, Infantino's close relationships with 'authoritarian' political leaders, a wide range of human rights violations directly linked to the hosting of World Cups, and the controversial award of the 2034 men's World Cup to Saudi Arabia. A letter sent in April from FIFA general secretary Mattias Grafstrom to Human Rights Watch, shared with The Athletic in May, detailed Saudi Arabia's reforms to its labour laws and added: 'In that respect, and in line with its human rights commitments, FIFA seeks to play its part in ensuring strong protections for workers employed by third parties in the construction of FIFA World Cup sites.' Infantino was also accused by human rights campaign groups of being too close to Qatar in the build-up to the 2022 World Cup, repeatedly rejecting criticism of the country's record. There were also raised eyebrows at his fawning over President Putin before, during and after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, accepting an 'order of friendship' medal and telling the world, 'This is a new image of Russia that we now have.' Within four years, FIFA had suspended Russia from its competitions until further notice after the country's invasion of Ukraine. What is indisputable is the huge amount of commercial revenue FIFA has extracted from, for example, Aramco, the state-owned Saudi energy company; Qatar Airways; and most recently, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which stepped up last week as a sponsor for the Club World Cup. The London-based Pitch Marketing Group released a report this week predicting FIFA's revenues for the four-year cycle to the 2026 World Cup will exceed $10billion, more than double the amount it earned in the four years before Russia 2018. 'The fact they're going to double revenue from one cycle to the next is quite a phenomenal achievement,' says Andrew Pragnell, chief executive of the New Zealand FA. 'When you look at what FIFA have done, particularly in terms of the redistribution of wealth across all of football, Gianni has represented that really well. I could list 100 challenges, but those outcomes are quite material. 'If you take a pure kind of Western democracy view, you can say, 'Ah, it's too lenient here, he's avoiding that issue there'. But he's effectively managing the United Nations, right? There are 210 countries. Diving into some of those issues, it's not an easy role. I don't think you can ever quite (judge) someone unless you've walked in those shoes.' 'Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel (like) a migrant worker.' Two and a half years have passed since Infantino's 57-minute address on the eve of the 2022 World Cup, which he began with an unexpected riff about empathising with oppressed groups — as a son of poorly treated migrant workers in Switzerland, 'bullied' for his Italian roots, ginger hair and freckles — before suggesting that criticism of his Qatari hosts' human rights record must be down to Islamophobia. Advertisement It is fascinating how often that speech comes up when asking people for their observations of Infantino. One football executive recalls it as 'embarrassing', another (who is otherwise largely supportive of him) as 'a very big communications mistake'. But another figure in FIFA circles says it came from the heart and was 'incredibly brave' — not just the words but the way he hugged Bryan Swanson, his director of media relations, who spoke up about how, as a gay man, he was grateful for Infantino's support. Since that day, Infantino has barely engaged with the media. His flurries of posts on Instagram, with public comments disabled, directly contrast his lack of engagement with mainstream media outlets. The traditional post-congress news conference has been abandoned, while numerous Club World Cup promotional events in the U.S. this week have been conducted without mainstream media access. Reporters who gathered for a trailed appearance from Infantino in Miami on Thursday were instead shown a six-minute video of the president. His only notable interview in recent times was with the American streamer Speed, who was content to build up towards the big one ('Messi or Ronaldo?') before allowing the FIFA president to spend precisely eight minutes watching footage of him playing in the recent Sidemen charity match at Wembley. The idea behind that interview was to connect with a different audience and to try to promote the looming Club World Cup, the success of which matters so much for his credibility. It was a curious performance. Infantino's party piece was to reveal the new Club World Cup trophy — the one with his name on it (twice) — and to produce a key to unlock its moving features. 'What the hell? That's tight,' Speed responded, almost echoing Trump's, 'Wow, you gotta be kidding' a couple of weeks earlier. And at this stage, seeing Speed's eyes light up, Infantino seemed to be in his element — in a football world without cynicism, where everything he says is taken at face value, where he is recognised as 'sort of king of soccer — I guess… in a certain way' and where that enthusiasm, as Trump put it, plays very well. Additional contributors: Matt Slater, Adam Crafton, Adam Leventhal (Top photos:; design: Eamonn Dalton)
