FIFA Is Abusing Its Players to Keep Authoritarians Happy

July 11, 2025
By: Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff

While players are forced to endure extreme heat in this summer’s World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino is cozying up to power.

Regardless of who wins Sunday’s Club World Cup final at MetLife stadium between Chelsea FC and Paris Saint-German, the real winner will be FIFA and its smarmy sycophant of a president, Gianni Infantino. The FIFA chief has been using the tournament to continue toadying up to Donald Trump, in advance of the North American–hosted World Cup, and to representatives of another future World Cup host, Saudi Arabia.

In fact, Infantino has been so focused on kissing the feet of authoritarians that he’s hardly paid attention to the health of the men whose magical feet keep the stands filled. By holding the Club World Cup in the extreme summer heat—in the offseason for most of the 32 clubs involved—FIFA demonstrated blatant disregard for the health of the players. A handful of matches were delayed due to soaring temperatures well past 100 degrees after FIFA scheduled midday kickoffs to accommodate television audiences in Europe. FIFPRO, the global players union that represents more than 60,000 professional footballers worldwide, has long slammed FIFA for valuing petro-dictators’ bottom lines over the well-being of the athletes. Back in 2023, the union noted that the Club World Cup schedule “demonstrates a lack of consideration for the mental and physical health of participating players, as well as a disregard for their personal and family lives.”

According to FIFPRO, modern-day players are already logging gobsmacking hours on the pitch. Twenty-two-year-old Brazilian phenom Vinícius Júnior (aka Vini Jr.) has already played twice as many minutes (18,876 of them) for club and country than legendary string-puller Ronaldinho. France’s Kylian Mbappe—Vini Jr.’s teammate at Real Madrid—had already logged 48 percent more minutes at age 24 than former French striker Thierry Henry logged at the same age. This is a major reason why young athletes have been breaking down in baseball and basketball. Plus, because of the professionalization of youth sports, there are more practices, more games, and more miles on the body’s odometer.

Meanwhile, some of the biggest names in soccer have called out Infantino’s FIFA for treating the players like equipment. Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp called the tournament “the worst idea ever implemented in football” in light of the fact that the tournament is scheduled smack in the center of European clubs’ summer break when the already overtaxed players need rest. Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City, which participated in the tournament, said that because of the wear and tear on players’ bodies, playing in the tournament could “destroy” the team’s upcoming season. Even Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s former criminal-in-chief, has said of the FIFA Club World Cup, “It was a mistake.”

Why would the world’s best soccer clubs even play in the FIFA Club World Cup? The answer is money. The tournament total prize money pool has $1 billion in it, with $525 million doled out to clubs simply for participating and another $475 million allocated based on results. Despite Guardiola’s warnings, Manchester City, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi United Group, reportedly walked off with nearly $52 million just for reaching the final 16 of the tournament. The winner of the tournament will nab a cool $125 million. But the money shuffle is rigged to benefit the world’s richest clubs, something that the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer—which participated in the tournament but did not emerge from the group stage—protested, donning T-shirts at a match last month emblazoned with the phrase “Club World Cash Grab.” Grunge lives.

The FIFA Club World Cup is an egregious grift. And the tournament might not have even come off the ground were it not for an injection of Saudi cash. German investigative journalist Jens Weinreich has asserted, “Saudi Arabia’s wealth and influence have permeated nearly every facet of this expanded tournament.”

After the major networks passed on airing the tournament, putting the entire spectacle at risk, DAZN, a middling sports network, found a billion dollars to buy the rights. It then emerged that the House of Saud had recently become a minority owner of DAZN. It bought 10 percent of the network—and just guess for how much.

Infantino might not be able to properly execute a corner kick, but he knows how to cozy up to power. He has long cultivated relations with Donald Trump—his bowed, bent, supplicant, shaved head could be seen at the back of the VIP section at Trump’s recent inauguration. He regularly posts on Instagram about his BFF DJT (and even his son Eric and the cringey JD Vance). At the Club World Cup, FIFA conspicuously ditched its in-stadium antidiscrimination messaging—even inoffensive statements like “no racism” and “no discrimination”—seemingly in deference to Trump. This was similar in effect (no matter the cause) to when the NFL took “No Racism” lettering off the field before the Super Bowl out of kindness to Trump.

Infantino then accompanied a clutch of players and staff from Juventus FC —the Italian club participating in the tournament—to visit Trump at the White House. Extreme awkwardness ensued as journalists asked Trump questions about Israel, Iran, and Joe Biden, while the players stood there silently. Then Trump, who seems most awake these days when hating someone, pivoted from slamming Biden for supporting transgender people to asking the players “Could a woman make your team, boys?” The footballers’ eyes darted nervously around the room until a member of the contingent, refusing to take the anti-trans bait, finally said, “We have a very good women’s team.” Trump looked back at them blankly, probably not knowing that Italy had a women’s soccer program.

Remember that blank, unknowing look when Trump attempts to reenact the 1978 World Cup in Argentina (overseen by a brutal junta, with Henry Kissinger in attendance) by standing astride the globe’s most watched sports tournament. He is in fact going to rehearse that on Sunday, appearing live with Infantino at the Club World Cup Finals. Here’s hoping the air-conditioning in the owner’s box is on the fritz—then the sheiks and sycophants can get an up-close view of a melting Orange glob and feel one-thousandth of what the players, at great risk of injury, are doing on the field.