November 9 – With FIFA president Gianni Infantino visiting the Caribbean again at the weekend looking to shore up support from the island’s many, the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) duly issued a statement in which 25 member associations give their “collective support” to Infantino’s re-election.
The CFU has 31 members. The ‘collective’ is the 25 members of the CFU who are FIFA member associations.
The use of “collective” rather than the more usual “unanimous” may also reflect that there is not the unity of support behind Infantino that he believes he has. Experts report that Infantino pushed the CFU to make the statement, although it’s not exactly a full-fledged endorsement.
A number of CFU nations that have strong Dutch, French and English support as current or historical territories, and are dependent on these countries for national grant programs and administrative support, are in danger of seriously damaging this goodwill.
Infantino took the gloves off by using mainstream politics to exert influence over the FA, particularly in Africa and Asia, where he went directly to national governments for support, often bypassing local football associations.
The Caribbean is a region where governments are more likely to look to their former colonial masters than FIFA when it comes to realpolitik. As the national leaders of each of these countries have called on Infantino to resign and to respect the basic rules of FIFA’s statutes and sports governance, a vote in favor of him could prove to be an embarrassing and image-damaging event for the island, and a potential threat to sports exchanges, especially when it comes to players moving on to professional leagues, heritage players filling educational opportunities, and educational opportunities in teams young athletes and teams from the island.
The US could also be a player in this regard. With many of the islands’ youngsters going to American universities, a vote for Infantino would send the message that they support a FIFA president who has so far refused to respond to the US House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena and is now likely to face subpoena in the new American political landscape where Infantino’s protection in the White House is limited and his personal reputation is taking daily hits.
The CFU’s statement “reaffirmed its collective commitment to strengthen regional unity, advance football development and build on the progress achieved across the Caribbean.”
It also recognized “FIFA’s development initiatives, including investments in football infrastructure, technical programmes, competitions, youth and women’s football and institutional capacity building”.
In what was an unusual statement from the Caribbean, and presumably aimed at the FIFA president they are trying to support, the CFU stressed “the importance of transparency, collective decision-making and respect for the voice of its members.
“In the same spirit, the CFU continues to call for greater transparency, good governance and meaningful reform within the football family. The CFU offers its support in the hope that FIFA will continue to strengthen accountability, maintain the highest standards of governance and pursue the necessary reforms to ensure that all member associations are fairly represented and served,” he concluded.
Along with the “collective” support for Infantino, the statement could be read as a rebuke of Infantino’s 10-year leadership of FIFA which, as revelation after revelation has shown, has made no progress since the low point of the US Department of Justice indictments in 2015.
Those accusations stripped the Caribbean of its leadership and tarred the rest of the Caribbean and Concacaf nations with suspicion of corruption and corruption in the eyes of the rest of the world.
The Caribbean, along with Africa, is perennially FIFA’s neediest nation, and this need/financial greed has been a useful tool of political leverage for FIFA.
The CFU says it “recognises the importance of ensuring that the next development cycle delivers sustainable benefits for its member associations. With the prospect of increased resources and continued support, the CFU remains focused on strengthening its capacity, improving regional cooperation and ensuring that football development remains at the heart of its priorities.”
The CFU should also recognize that had it not been for Infantino’s opponents, they would still be receiving only $10 million over the next four-year cycle of Infantino’s budgeted distribution. Concacaf president Victor Montagliani and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin lobbied FIFA, pointing out that it could double the amount paid to nations without any effect on FIFA’s operations and that there should be far fewer restrictions on how the grant money can be used. The irony is that the CFU ‘collective’ supports a president who had tried to limit his income before being forced to more than double it to $25 million.
If Caribbean nations want to break the yoke of football’s equivalent of plantation poverty, they should think hard about what they really care about and who got them the financial boost they are about to get.
Last Thursday, Infantino announced a $5.3 million investment in Aruba (population 108,257) to build seven artificial turf fields. They have another $19.7 million over the next four years. That’s the equivalent of giving everyone on the island $231.
Contact the writer of this story at (email protected)
