The World Cup is the pinnacle of football and the jewel in the FIFA crown. For nearly 100 years, the game's global showpiece has been an imperfect positive influence on civilisation and a fantastic excuse to turn football into a party.
World Cup 2026 is the 23rd edition of the tournament and the balance between sporting celebration and geopolitical soft power feels as off as it's ever been. Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, has a case to answer.
Political neutrality is baked into FIFA's existence but Infantino has taken operating like a world leader to a whole new level. Being so close to Qatar and to Donald Trump on a personal level has attracted serious criticism around the world and FIFA itself is being dragged through the mud once again.
Who is Gianni Infantino?
Infantino was the permanent successor to reviled FIFA president Sepp Blatter and has slipped seamlessly into the role as it really works, manoeuvring politically into a place of near autocracy.
The 56-year-old was born in Switzerland and ascended to the FIFA presidency from UEFA, where he pursued the same aggressive expansionist approach to major tournaments as the one that underpins the growth of the World Cup to 48 teams in 2026.
The ninth FIFA president is a magnet for mistrust, a presumably unwelcome consequence of the apparent disparity between the apolitical worldsman preacher image he portrays and the fact that the World Cup has been played in or awarded to Russia, Qatar, the United States and Saudi Arabia in the decade since he replaced Blatter.
Each of those hosts has some degree of questionable suitability in the context of the World Cup's supposed purpose and FIFA's stated neutrality, but that's not the point. The World Cup is a global affair and hosting eligibility is necessarily a complex matter. No nation state is wholly innocent.
Every host warrants scrutiny from the game's governing body and that's compromised by FIFA's top schmoozer cosying up to some leaders whose actions seem to fly in the face of football's unifying role.
Flip the telescope around the look down the other end and it's easy to see why Infantino is in such a position of strength. His first 48-team World Cup will feature four debutants and many long-term absentees, and there could easily have been more.
Opening the tournament up to such an extent offers a boost to regions beyond Europe, the real-world impact of Infantino's famous open-arms pose, but his apparent desire to attach himself to genuine and often deeply problematic political power is not some utilitarian necessity.
The former general secretary of UEFA was voted in as FIFA's chief suit early in 2016 after the suspension of Blatter the previous year.
Infantino has a positive reputation as a commercial influence and helped to mastermind the pan-continental European Championship that was eventually played in 2021.
His popularity among FIFA's executive committee is not difficult to understand. Infantino knows how to grow the game and its commercial clout, albeit in his image rather than for its own health, and more money in football in general has benefited national bodies all over the world.
Infantino, though, projects one image and acts in another. What he says about social matters and what he cheerfully accepts from his partners are two different things.
The World Cup in Infantino's words is open to everyone, no matter what. It's above and apart from politics and borders both geographic and cultural. The recent history of the World Cup on his watch might suggest otherwise.
