John Fallon on the World Cup: Greatest show on earth tainted by competing egomaniacs

FINAL COUNTDOWN: The USA President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantio with the World Cup. Pic: Sam Corum/PA Wire

After 103 matches across 39 days, the most intriguing element of the World Cup final on Sunday could boil down to who emerges from the egomaniac battle between the Presidents of the USA and Fifa.

New Jersey’s Metlife Stadium will house 82,500 fans, who paid a minimum face value price per ticket of $6,000, but will there be enough room therein to accommodate the presence of figureheads obsessed by power but beset by infamy?

It’s long been established that Gianni Infantino is in thrall of Donald Trump, ignoring regulations around political interference by bestowing on an absurd, inaugural peace prize at the finals draw in Washington last December.

That he’s invited his hero onto the pitch on Sunday to co-present the trophy to either Lionel Messi or Rodri deepens the unholy alliance that has soured the 23rd edition of the global bonanza, no matter how electrifying the football fare was at times.

Just when it seemed the game’s original prestige would prevail, shunting the odious background machinations to the sideline, along came instances of narcissistic powerbrokers flouting the very essence of the game into a Playstation version for their vested interests.

Unpalatable enough was Trump’s direct phonecall to his footballing underling, decrying the injustice of Folarin Balogun’s dismissal against Bosnia-Herzegovina before the real story unfolded of how ‘independent justice’ was administered.

Kudos to Times chief sports reporter Martyn Ziegler for unearthing the truth of how just one person, FIFA disciplinary committee chairman Mohammad Al Kamali, chose to suspend the suspension. None of the other 17 committee members were consulted before the American striker was cleared to face Belgium in the last-16.

It was an appalling vista, suitably derided in widespread circles, including Uefa skewering the move as crossing a red line.

Yet it wasn’t entirely unprecedented, as we well know, given the secretive chamber inside Fifa’s corridors saw fit to park Cristiano Ronaldo’s ban from his dismissal in Dublin last October to facilitate gracing the extravaganza.

What’s most troubling about the game being corrupted in plain sight is Infantino’s insatiable appetite to keep pushing boundaries.

Outrage may be audible across the continents but unheard inside the private jet whisking him around three countries for this routine photo opportunities during matches.

It won’t have perturbed the Swiss national a jot that the end of June saw a petition by 50 members of European parliament, including a cohort of Irish representatives, demanding he be investigated by his own ethics committee. The issue, unsurprisingly, was his cosying to Trump constituted a breach of neutrality.

None of this, nor the outcry of Sunday’s final going Superbowl with an half hour interval show that contravenes their own rules, lays a glove on the invincible one. Last year’s Club World Cup flop, also Stateside, drew flak without anything sticking and the leaking of another tournament expansion is timely with an election looming next March.

How ironic it is that Infantino’s rise to power in 2016 was hailed as a game-changer from his predecessor Sepp Blatter.

Alarm bells ought to have sounded within a year once he removed those investigating allegations of malpractice against him.

Ireland doesn’t need reminding of how football overlords insulate themselves and Infantino’s pandering to America, Asia and Africa protects him from a heave, ensuring a fourth term being anointed in Rabat.

Murmurs of an uprising arise and vanish with equal alacrity but in political dialect the incumbent can operate with impunity aware that he has the numbers to withstand any coup.

Of the 211 countries within Fifa, Infantino requires votes from 106 to extend his Presidency.

South America’s 10 nations, known as Conmebol, were first to slap his back in April, followed by unanimous backing from its 54 member federations within the Confederation of African Football (Caf).

Allied to that are the Asian Football Confederation's 47 countries. That equates to an unassailable start of 111 votes.

Even the fiasco over Somali referee Omar Artan being refused entry to the US wasn’t sufficient for the African confederation to reconsider their support, despite endorsing Uefa’s masterstroke of awarding the aggrieved official the European Super Cup final.

With the women’s World Cup returning to the USA next year, and the 2030 men’s version heading for Saudi Arabia, control in the ballot box has been solidified.

Europe is the outlier here, left isolated to crib without consequences.

Germany’s refusal to sign up to support the 56-year-old’s re-election tilt might create headlines in this part of the world but carries no clout in an overall context.

There’s no guarantee Uefa’s nations will vote collectively either.

Take the FAI, for example.

While a frown may accompany news of Infantino carrying on unopposed, it would soon break into a smile with the promise of an enlarged pot of €2bn of grants to members over the four-year term.

Nobody can expect a hard-up outpost association to start rattling the cage in Morocco over the St Patrick’s weekend.

We’ve reached the stage of montages being composed.

Purists will concentrate on the football and doubtless Fifa will want us rejoicing at Curaçao's sole goal, Cape Verde’s heroics led by Pico Lopes, the Norwegian Viking Row and Majestic Messi.

All worthy of highlights, yet unworthy of masking the obscene manipulation of the greatest show on earth.

Don’t let football get in the way of that imperative on Sunday.