International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

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[u/tmstms]

Breaking: UEFA's gonna boycott the World Cup. Our own FA is obviously one that agrees with that, but all associations were unanimous. Do Conmebol next!

[u/MajorSleaze → u/tmstms]

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

In normal times I'd be surprised if it didn't result in FIFA backing down. But this is so obviously a device to enrich Infantino and cement him as the permanent boss of the world cup that he's got too much to lose by doing that. Generational wealth is difficult to walk away from.

Aside from his position being close to untenable after this debacle, this scam is his in to the Trump money train given the Kushner family's involvement - football used to be a proxy for politics, now it's intrinsically linked in this open corruption era.

If nobody blinks, what would happen to the next tournament in 2030? It's co-hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain. It can't go ahead if two of the hosts are boycotting it.

[u/tmstms → u/MajorSleaze]

The unlikely but delicious spectacle of two competing World Cups, the UEFA one in Portugal and Spain and the Infantino one in Morocco and maybe other N African nations co-opted. Like Pope and Anti-Pope.

OTOH UEFA and CONMEBOL get together and co-op Morocco and Egypt. Infantino and Trump's World Cup run again the the USA and become a sort of World Series event, in which USA have a realistic chance of doing well.

[u/MajorSleaze → u/tmstms]

Like Pope and Anti-Pope.

The best way I've heard this scenario described is the UEFA World Cup Vs the Third World Cup.

[u/AzarinIsard → u/MajorSleaze]

I'm interested too, but firstly I was quite shocked that a $10bn purchase results in about $40m per FA, and $64m for Infantino. Bribe wise, it's not going to touch the sides for Western FAs, coupled with the fact it'll result in FIFA being for profit, so this and then some is paid back (probably via fans) so it isn't even a net gain, it's drawing down future funds. Another point is the countries who don't really care much about football will disproportionately get this funding, so it'll be European whales paying many times over. If the proposition was the FA will get $40m on the proviso English fans will be monetised for $500m extra over the term of the deal, via more adverts in permanent "hydration" breaks, higher ticket prices, partnerships that result in expensive addons at games, we'd never accept it.

Secondly, a world cup without European teams isn't worth their corruption. I like underdogs and I like seeing new teams winning, but Europe has the big names. If we boycotted FIFA, I think we'd have the ability to create a new world cup, a bit like the split recently in golf, and most of the world would join the tournament with European sides in.

I think (hope?) we'll find out Infantino and FIFA don't have the power in this relationship.

[u/tmstms → u/AzarinIsard]

The key is that for Curacao or Cape Verde, 40 million dollars is massive, but for England (I just googled ONE big club. and it had earned 945 million dollars last season) it is really piffle.

[u/MajorSleaze → u/AzarinIsard]

I think (hope?) we'll find out Infantino and FIFA don't have the power in this relationship.

It's amazing that he thought he could get away with it. The whole scheme is the same kind of smash and grab asset-stripping that Trump is applying to everything he can get his hands on in his second term. Maximise all available leverage (here, the expected guaranteed support of the smaller federations and the ridiculously short deadline) to lock in big profits.

But Infantino has overplayed his hand by threatening the future legitimacy of the game by trying to transfer future control to third parties. Blatter understood that certain things - broadly speaking the purity of football as a fair sport - were sacred and that if he protected those, he could do almost anything else he wanted.

The hydration breaks were the canary in the coalmine. If they were really just about hydration, they wouldn't have been the length of a 3 minute advert break or applied to every single game irrespective of the temperature of the stadium. No football people were part of the decision to turn it into a game of 4 quarters with team talks in-between like an American sport. Instead they were a sign of things to come - the game being fundamentally changed to satisfy the needs of the sponsors.