Gianni Infantino Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

FIFA president: Women soccer players need to ‘convince men,' 'pick right battles' in order to gain equality
The 2023 Women’s World Cup hasn’t resonated stateside like it typically does. The USWNT never looked good, weren’t healthy, and were heavily criticized by people eagerly awaiting a stumble. Considering that, coupled with the time difference in Australia and New Zealand, one could suppose that a lack...

Everyone wants to love women’s soccer without taking any responsibility for it
It wasn’t quite the theater of the idiotic that his pre-Qatar speech was, but FIFA president Gianni Infantino had to get in front of a mic before the kickoff of the women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and certainly wasn’t in any more of a mood to take any responsibility for problems with ...

Putting the World Cup Final in New Jersey would be great, if you like cruel and unusual punishment
The states of New York and New Jersey launched a joint successful campaign to be a host city for the 2026 World Cup a while back. And yeah, of course the world’s biggest individual sporting event couldn’t have the most populous region of the country left out when the United States, Mexico, and Canad...

FIFA wants to promote women’s soccer — as long as there’s money in it
“FIFA is a non-profit organization” is one of the biggest oxymorons in the world. You don’t get a good portion of the organization indicted for corruption if the body is mainly focused on merely the health of the sport and building it from the bottom up. Gianni Infantino’s latest episode of throwing...

It’s been another banner week for FIFA
The election of a FIFA president is probably as close as we can get to a world president, as being the governor of the world’s most popular sport certainly allows one to wield an insane amount of power and influence. What exactly Gianni Infantino has done to earn a second term is anyone’s guess, oth...

The 2026 World Cup is swole as fuck
Despite being shoved into the middle of the season and in a country that was in no way up to the standards of hosting such a thing, the last World Cup ended up being a hit for what went on on the field. Exciting conclusion to the group stages, classic games in the knockout stages, and a memorable wi...

Thank the lord FIFA is going back into its hole Sunday
The people who scream that sports should be an escape are usually the ones most in need of a reminder about empathy, equality, a natural disaster, or an ongoing war. Sports can be a great distraction for those who actually need it. ...

Lotta goals in the desert - World Cup Daily Diary: Day 15
Today was about England and France eyeballing each other over their respective opponents, with the only drama being whether or not they would get caught looking too far ahead. They most certainly did not, engaging in a “Anything you can do..” dance that set them up for a glossy quarterfinal on Frida...

A few thoughts on the start of 2022 World Cup
While the World Cup started yesterday, it doesn’t really kick off until today. The World Cup, for fans, is about the NCAA tournament-type feel of multiple games every day, and there are three today and four per for the next couple of weeks. That’s the real tournament. If we didn’t all feel weird eno...

Lotta goals in the desert — World Cup Daily Diary Day 1
We’ll be running a daily roundup of everything that happens in Qatar, starting with the opening day today. Take the journey with us....

FIFA forgoing $150 million annually to pursue delusions of grandeur
Like people who are addicted to Coca-Cola products, gamers can spot a knockoff within the first three seconds of tasting one. Try giving a Coke lover a Pepsi, and they get offended. A waiter responding to a request for a Coke with, “We only have Pepsi. Is that OK?” is met with a laugh more often tha...

FIFA president claims biannual World Cup will solve immigration, poverty, and maybe mortality?
Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, is still campaigning for his biannual World Cup, a mythic destiny/personal quest to bathe the organization’s execs in even more cash, gold, and swag bags. However, you can’t campaign for this ridiculousness on the platform that it will make the rich even rich...

Changing the World Cup to every two years could (but won’t) help soccer’s have-nots
Changing the World Cup to a biennial event is an awful idea. That’s not the most groundbreaking statement, but I wanted to put it bluntly because that’s the point I want you to remember from the rest of this. And if FIFA president Gianni Infantino is to be believed, and the move has a majority backi...

FIFA Makes Completely Meaningless Ethical Stand
The U.S.-led North American bid for the 2026 World Cup earned 93 percent of the 209 votes in FIFA Congress today. In March, the North American soccer federations requested an exclusive window to begin submitting technical specifications, which would give them a head start in the planning process. Bu...

FIFA Did A Bunch Of Shady Shit This Week
There is a lot of corruption going on in the world, but not at FIFA, no siree. Since numerous top officials were arrested two years ago, and longtime president Sepp Blatter was ousted and replaced by the much chiller Gianni Infantino, one might assume that FIFA now takes corruption and ethics seriou...

The World Cup Is Probably Expanding To 48 Teams, But That Might Be Okay
The docket at the FIFA governing council’s meeting tomorrow morning in Zurich includes the following items: “Approval of the Media and Marketing Regulations for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017”; “Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine”; as well as “Format of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”...

FIFA's New President Has A Couple Huge Scandals Brewing Already
Just a couple of months ago, newly elected FIFA president Gianni Infantino promised to usher in an era of accountability for soccer’s scandal-ravaged governing body. Not a month ago, he declared FIFA’s annus horribilis officially over, while quietly snatching unprecedented executive authority. And n...

Citing FIFA's New Power To Fire Him, FIFA's Independent Audit Chief Quits
The person with the most necessary job in the world, FIFA’s chairman of audit and compliance, has resigned, because FIFA’s top officials on Friday passed a measure that allows them to fire auditing, finance, and ethics officers at will....

FIFA’s New President Just Gave Himself More Power Than Sepp Blatter Ever Had
When we supposed what a Gianni Infantino FIFA presidency would look like back when he won the office in February, we saw visions of a celebrity-friendly, photo op-ready, travel-loving, money-giving, but basically powerless tenure. In some ways, this has been borne out already in his still-budding te...

Why FIFA's Unambitious New President Might Be Good News For Reform
To my mind, the most telling thing to come from this entire, interminable Extraordinary FIFA Congress wasn’t the election itself—in which Gianni Infantino, previously the general secretary of UEFA, became the new president of soccer’s powerful and scandal-ravaged governing body—nor was it the indivi...