Gianni Infantino’s actions at Fifa remain more dangerous than his words

T he crassest leader in global sport was at it again last week, making a comparison between Rwanda’s recovery from genocide to his own struggles to be elected Fifa president for the first time. It was another one of those Gianni Infantino car-crash moments you could see looming from a mile off, from the moment he explained how his 2016 campaign had appeared to hit the skids, before a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial encouraged him to keep fighting. Yet on he went, pressing down harder on the accelerator, oblivious as always.

“And I said, ‘Who am I to give up?’” Infantino told the Fifa delegates who had just re-elected him unopposed for another four-year term. “What this country has suffered and how this country came back up is inspiring for the entire world, dear president … I continued to campaign, and I was elected the Fifa president a few months later.”

How we all grimaced. Yet it would be a mistake to see Infantino as a mere punchline: someone to roll our eyes at when he pronounces: “I feel Qatari, I feel gay, I feel disabled”, or claims that a World Cup every two years could stop African migrants from finding “death in the sea”. The stark reality is his actions are far more dangerous than his words or lack of filter.

What was it the American civil activist Maya Angelou once said? When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. During all those years where Infantino cosied up to Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman he was showing us.

Perhaps he learned something from Russia’s ruler. A day before the World Cup final in Qatar, Infantino revealed that it had been “clarified” to the Fifa Council that his first term, from 2016 to 2019, did not count towards the 12-year term limit dictated by