Marina Hyde
Ihope you have found time to enjoy Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s 15-page Instagram meltdown about his World Cup. The last time I saw this many defiant words, they were inked on someone sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Salvadoran supermax prison.
Infantino has been clapping back at his haters – putting them on blast, in the parlance of our times – and on this evidence seems mesmerisingly close to picking out a Chicano script font and getting STILL I RISE needled across his corporate clavicles. Right next to the ones reading THROUGH THE FIRE, UNBREAKABLE and BUILT DIFFERENT.
“Sorry that the matches are now over and sorry that you missed all that joy and togetherness. Sorry that you were so consumed by hate and criticism that you missed it all,” the Fifa president – reportedly a 56-year-old man – posted yesterday. “To those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens spreading hate and false rumours, I want to say that while you are sitting behind, we at Fifa are on the frontlines organising, working hard, and delivering the best show in the world.” The frontlines of cheating because a fellow presidential shitposter told you to? Hey – it’s a living. Of course, I should say that Infantino denies caving to the repeated interference from Donald Trump over the decision to make the red-carded Folarin Balogun available for the US’s last-16 tie. But I see the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee has launched an investigation into the Fifa president and his ties with the actual president, so ideally Gianni will have the chance to say all this and more in an interview with the committee in due course.
But for now, back to his rant. “To those spending their time and energy hating us,” ran a later, time-consumingly energetic section of the Insta-treatise, “please take a moment to reflect, meditate, pray or watch a football match …” Pray? This, takes us firmly into ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME territory, with Infantino now presenting as the Tupac of the Switzerland-based sporting governance class.
A few years ago I would have said that the Fifa president has forgotten one of the golden rules of modern life – that it’s always fine not to post. You could always, quite simply, just not post. And yet, can that really be said to be the case any more? A fascinating report last week by Luminate, the entertainment data analysts, found that 39% of Americans identified as content creators, while Goldman Sachs’s own last look at the subject forecast well over 100 million people globally placing themselves in this class over the next few years.
Psychically speaking, Infantino seems to be inching ever-closer to the conviction that he invented the product – football – and that his primary job is not administrating it, but being “out there” on his public channels, forever outlining his philosophy, or stoking geopolitical online beef, or embodying it all in some ineffable, excruciating-to-watch sort of way. In this he shares a kinship with posting megalodons like Elon Musk, as well as tireless minnows like the take-me-back founder of BrewDog, James Watt.
Yet the tendency is reflected all the way down the levels of bosses. These days, founders of companies, whom Infantino would no doubt see as his peer group, report being expected to constantly document their thinking publicly and stay permanently visible to attract customers and investors. What was once an optional marketing activity is now a core part of the job, which, for significant chunks of the day, takes them away from such devalued tasks as building the product or running the company. They have discovered, if only subconsciously, that their actual job is posting – that they have to be an always-on personal content creator.
In a way football was ahead on all this, as were various other sports. The game’s owners and exploiters have long seen the matches themselves as mere 90-minute sections of legacy content, which would be far better relegated to the second, third or even fourth tier behind such always-on output as branded content, shareable clips, behind-the-scenes footage, lifestyle and commerce.
And, of course, viral moments, which is presumably what Infantino was going for with his 15-page algorithm frotting. Here is the promoter as creator – a vibe also embodied by, say, Ultimate Fighting Championships’s Dana White. In fact, in retrospect, Infantino’s main character glow-up been under way for some time. In a mad, hour-long soliloquy ahead of the previous World Cup in Qatar, Infantino addressed the world: “You want to criticise someone, come to me. Criticise me. Here I am. Crucify me,” he went on, standing to extend his arms out wide. “Don’t criticise Qatar. Don’t criticise the players. Don’t criticise anyone. Criticise Fifa. Criticise me, if you want. Because I’m responsible for everything.” Fifa itself has long been a supranational body, a travelling parasitic nation-state. But under Infantino, the situation has seemingly evolved into Infantino himself being Fifa. L’état, c’est moi.
Let’s play out with another telling passage from his most recent diatribe, in which Infantino announced a diplomatic victory for some reason yet to be meaningfully acknowledged in any sustained way by oil prices. As Mr Fifa put it: “We worked tirelessly to unite two countries at war”. Is this the US and Iran? OK! I guess someone has to get the Fifa peace prize next year, and what better way to build on the optics triumph of its inaugural recipient than by keeping it in-house, and awarding it to Infantino himself? The first creator-president surely deserves nothing less.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
