November 12: Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has launched an extraordinary attack on Gianni Infantino, branding his successor a “dictator” and targeting his handling of the World Cup, Donald Trump and FIFA’s abandoned business reform plans.
Speaking to German magazine Der Spiegel in comments published by France24, the 90-year-old said FIFA was “suffering” under Infantino’s leadership and accused him of having “allowed himself to be blinded”.
Blatter reserved particular criticism for the FIFA Peace Prize presented to US President Donald Trump ahead of the World Cup.
“The Peace Prize was shameful,” he said. “Why would he do something like that? Infantino giving a peace prize to someone who makes war on Iran soon after? That’s crazy.”
The relationship between Infantino and Trump became one of the recurring talking points around the 2026 World Cup, but Blatter also returned to issues closer to FIFA’s own governance.
He attacked the now-abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, which would have opened up part of FIFA’s future commercial rights business to outside investment.
The project was abandoned after opposition from across the football industry, with Infantino later apologizing for the mistakes in how it had been handled. Since then, FIFA has established a working group to examine governance reforms.
“Infantino no longer knows borders,” Blatter told Der Spiegel. “He doesn’t understand any of this.”
He then went much further and suggested that Infantino “one day should be sent to a psychiatric ward”.
Blatter also called FIFA’s current president a “dictator”, claiming he had been told by people within the organization that Infantino was considered “untouchable” and that staff could not share a lift with him.
“Mr Infantino does use the lift at FIFA, but he does so when other people are there,” the governing body responded, according to France24.
FIFA has also defended Infantino’s travel schedule and rejected Blatter’s criticism of the decision to suspend US striker Folarin Balogun’s World Cup one-match ban.
Blatter described this episode as “the worst”, arguing that the Laws of the Game “must apply to everyone”.
FIFA said Balogun’s decision had been taken by its independent judicial bodies. However, the organization has ordered a review of its disciplinary procedures following the controversy.
Blatter led FIFA from 1998 until his resignation in 2015 amid the corruption crisis that engulfed the organization. He was later acquitted in two criminal trials, but received bans from football through FIFA’s ethics process.
Blatter told Der Spiegel that he has “no regrets” about his own presidency and said he had not spoken to Infantino since early 2016.
With Infantino facing a challenge for another term, Blatter also offered a preferred alternative: World Athletics president Sebastian Coe.
“It’s not important who runs,” he said. “What is important is that the incumbent president is no longer elected.”
After a decade without speaking to his successor, it’s clear that Blatter hasn’t run out of things to say about him.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)
