Getting rid of Infantino won’t quell the urge to monetize sports

I crossed paths with Gianni Infantino just once at the World Cup. It was shortly after the Canada-South Africa game at SoFi Stadium in L.A.

As usual, I was lost in the circular air hangar that wraps around the innards of all American football stadiums. While wandering aimlessly, I ran into Infantino’s idling motorcade. This sort of security set-up is generally reserved for heads of state, which I suppose FIFA believes it is.

As I was trying to slip by, the great man emerged at a trot. He was flanked by a bunch of suited heavies who all looked like they’d seen In the Line of Fire as young children and it had had a big effect on them. One of them paused in front of me to hold out a warning arm until the principal was deposited in his SUV. Because I was going to do what exactly? Hug him and cry?

I once stumbled into Barack Obama under nearly identical circumstances. He was accompanied by one guy at a discreet distance. The former president of something that actually matters locked eyes with and finger gunned everyone he passed. The woman standing beside me got so woozy she had to lean against a wall.

This is to say, some people misapprehend their place in the world.

I will say this for that Infantino, the one who existed a month ago and does no longer – he looked happy. A natural-born striver with no apparent gifts other than a strong tolerance for sycophantism, he’d come an awful long way.

But look at him now – diminished, desperate, wandering from war council to war council.

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Everybody hates the guy, but what did he do but the thing that all sports chiefs are expected to do these days.

Fifty years ago, they might have been described as keepers of the flame. Now, they are excavators of hidden value. Yes, selling the World Cup was not the marketing slam dunk he seemed to think it was. But how could Infantino be anything other than what he is?

Have you noticed how all these guys have the same public personality? When you think of Gary Bettman, Roger Goodell or Adam Silver long enough, they meld into one slick, affable person. Friendly, but not sincere. Smart, but not showy about it, which would make the princes of industry they work for feel uncomfortable. Like kindergarten teachers and birthday party clowns, they also have a way with young people. The players like them, too.

That’s the first thing Infantino wanted – to be one of those guys. The sort of person the real stars love.

Instead, on the medal podium after the World Cup final, they all refused his offer of an embrace. Mark Carney got more eye contact. Infantino was left pursuing Donald Trump around the stage, like an embarrassed dad chasing his toddler through a nice restaurant.

You know what a man in that position needs? A couple of billionaires to service. Infantino thought Trump was his guy, but the U.S. President has apparently stopped taking his calls. Whatever use Infantino was to him, it’s done.

Coming off a career high, you can see the wisdom in Infantino’s thought process. If I’m going to do something big, now’s the time to do it.

Funnelled through the most modern way of thinking about sport, Infantino’s idea was a good one. The World Cup is worth a great deal. Why not wring every dollar you can out of it? It’s not like he planned to keep the money for himself. Well, not most of it.

Had Infantino been dealing with a couple of dozen billionaire owners, this proposal would not be controversial. It would be IPO’able. Instead of figuring out how to fire him, Infantino’s bosses would be talking about what sort of island to buy him for his birthday – a tropical one, or one with a mountain that looks like a skull.

What Infantino did not sufficiently consider is that the people he reports to – the national soccer associations of FIFA’s member states – were not going to be in on the windfall. Or not sufficiently.

The total proposed take was US$4.2-billion. There are 211 member associations. After taxes, deductions, bonuses and administrative costs, that’s what? A hundred bucks a head?

Why would Europe’s governing body, UEFA, exchange such a piddling amount for imminent loss of control over a show its federations are the overwhelming stars of? Like most big ideas by what now passes for sport’s big thinkers, this one was farcical on its face.

Infantino tried to gut it out. First, he went with veiled threats. Then he tried wheedling. Eventually, he was reduced to begging.

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FIFA had to deny a report in The Times that Infantino promised the final of the next World Cup to Morocco in return for that country’s support. I’m sure that will completely reassure the tournament’s other co-hosts, Spain and Portugal. There is now a world in which that tournament falls apart amidst a scheduling war.

Infantino probably thought he’d outrun the fire, but mid-week, UEFA announced that its plan to boycott future FIFA productions is still on. They want a head and guess whose?

Getting rid of Infantino won’t fix anything, of course. The urge to monetize will be just as strong in the next person. If you were hoping for a traditionalist, sadly, that is the new tradition.

Otherwise, you’re doing what? Figuring out how to put on tournaments with less than net zero carbon emissions? Who wants that job? And what would happen to your motorcade in that case? Would it be okay?

At the most basic level, the sort of people who seek to run sports organizations want two things – the appearance of total power, and to be lionized afterward, Ozymandias-style, for their grand works.

None of them will ever score a goal, or run a team, or win anything. They won’t reengineer the culture or make resounding social breakthroughs – things that were once at least possible for sports leaders.

All they have to signal that they were there, and that they mattered, are figures on a spreadsheet telling the story of all the riches they surfaced.