FIFA, president of the Jordanian Football Association: ‘I was blackmailed into backing Infantino’

“During the World Cup, I was told verbally that if I were to support Gianni Infantino, this would be of considerable help to our Football Association. In Jordan, we take pride in upholding ethical values. We did not support him before and we certainly will not do so now. But the whole situation amounts to blackmail, and we refuse to give in to it.” This is the stark accusation levelled by Prince Ali bin al-Ḥusayn, president of the Jordanian Football Association and former vice-president of FIFA, in a post on X in which he accuses world football’s governing body of unpaid Arab Cup prize money and problems relating to the World Cup, including visas and taxes.

The Fifa Forward Enterprise project has been shelved shared with US PresidentDonald Trump, thanks to UEFA which has strongly in the way, some are now beginning to get things off their chests. FIFA’s Secretary General Mattias Grafström, according to a report in the Financial Times, has, for example, sent a memo to staff in which he described the FFE plan as something ‘difficult to understand and accept’ and said he was grateful that it had been abandoned.

Grafström’s opposition to the plan kept secret by Infantino – which aimed to sell a stake in a new entity that would host FIFA’s commercial activities and events – follows the criticism levelled last week by Kevin Lamour, FIFA’s chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, who claimed that he and his colleagues had been “misled”. Lamour described the plan as “a one-man project”.

For his part, Arsène Wenger, FIFA’s head of global football development, stated in a press release on Tuesday that he had not been involved in the plan. The former Arsenal manager added that the decision to withdraw from it was “absolutely necessary and beyond question, because I firmly believe in an independent FIFA that serves our sport with commitment, transparency and integrity”.