Timothy Weah looked like someone who felt that he had been caught.
“It was a surprise for me, honestly,” the United States national team player told journalists His trip to the White HouseWhere he was part of a delegation from his Italian Juventus club standing with awkwardly in the oval office while President Donald Trump answered media questions on a possible American attack on Iran and wrinkled on transgender women in sport.
“They told us that we have to go and I had no choice but to go,” said Weah. “It was a little weird. When he started talking about politics with Iran and everything, it’s a bit, like … I just want to play football, guy.”
Weah seemed to have wanted to be somewhere – anywhere – otherwise. Likewise, his Juventus and his American teammate Weston McKennie, who described Trump as “ignorant” for his response to the Matter Black Lives demonstrations in 2020.
With the exception of John Elkann, director general of the majority shareholder of the Turin club, Exor, presented by Trump as a “fantastic business business” and “a friend of me”, the whole delegation looked uncomfortable – especially when the president asked them: “could a woman do your team, guys?”
He fell to the director general of Juventus, Damien Comolli, to break the annoying silence, responding: “We have a very good female team.”
“You see? They are very diplomatic,” said Trump.
President Donald Trump flanked by John Elkann, right, and the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino (Doug Mills / Pool / AFP via Getty Images)
Among the inevitable media issues on Iran, Israel and American border controls, there was an investigation into the current club World Cup played in the United States – or specifically on the way in which the tournament and the World Cup of next year could be assigned by the prohibition of travel imposed on citizens of 19 countries, which, from next year As the New York Times revealed this weekcould be extended to 36 others.
At this point, Trump turned to his other “great friend”, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino. “This is not a concern,” said Infantino about the ban on travel, adding that the “learning” of the Club World Cup would apply to the 2026 World Cup, which will be organized in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
“I don’t think he (Infantino) is too worried about the ban on travel,” said Trump. “He does not know what is the ban on travel, I do not think. Gianni, tell me what is the ban on travel. He does not know what it is. It is largely sold.”
Infantino, as it is about him, rocked his head back and laughed before returning to Hochant-Dog mode when the agenda returned to more serious questions.
To be clear, when Trump said: “It is widely sold,” it seemed to talk about the number of tickets purchased for club World Cup matches. But … Well, part of the growing criticism of infantino could be tempted to say that it works in both directions.
During his campaign to win the presidency of FIFA in 2016, Infantino visited the Iranian capital Tehran, where he was asked how the diplomatic fracture between this country and Saudi Arabia could have an impact on sport. “It is very clear that politics should remain outside football and that football should remain outside of politics,” he said at a press conference.
There was a similar answer to Audi Field, Washington, Wednesday evening when Athletics Asked the Juventus coach Igor Tudor, which had seemed to be held behind the office at the Oval Office a match day when the American president discussed the cases in Iran and Israel. The FIFA moderator of the press conference prohibited, saying that Tudor would only answer questions relating to the 5-0 victory of Juventus on the Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates and the Club World Cup more generally.
Two days before, when Athletics asked FIFA if the decision to fall Anti-discrimination messaging Club World Cup sites were linked to the current political climate in the United States, he stressed his statutes, which say that “FIFA remains neutral in matters of policy”.
Then Wednesday, FIFA posted anti-racism slogans during tournament gamesBut only as one-off to mark International Day to have hatred speeches. If all this seems very disorderly, it is because it is the case.
Keeping politics out of the game looks like a very reasonable position for the world’s director of world football. But it is also the most fallacious position imaginable when the same coach and his players had been introduced into the oval office a few hours before this match and when The president of FIFA was accused by UEFA, the director director of European footballto prioritize “private political interests” above the interests of sport.
Infantino denies this accusation, citing the importance of working in close collaboration with American leadership for the good of the Club World Cup and the World Cup of next year.
But “Bromance” with Trump seems to mark the continuation of a theme.
Infantino was also friendly with President Vladimir Putin before, during and after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, accepting a “friendship order” medal in 2019 and saying to the world: “It is a new image of Russia that we have now” – a statement that did not age well.
Infantino accepts an order of friendship by Vladimir Putin in 2019 (Evgenia Novozhenina / AFP via Getty Images)
Then there was the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where Infantino was accused by campaign groups on human rights of becoming too close to the leaders of the host nation and to trivialize the conditions to which migrant workers there -there -there -there -there – as explored in depth by AthleticsSimon Hughes – by comparing them to his own experiences as the son of Italian immigrants in Switzerland in the 1970s and 1980s.
Seven European football associationsIncluding England, Germany and the Netherlands, were warned by FIFA that their teams would face sanctions if their captains wore “Onelove” armbands promoting anti-discrimination campaign featuring an rainbow logo during the matches at this tournament.
FIFA has judged that the message was “political”, which in itself seemed to be a political position to adopt Qatar, since it had only months earlier the rainbow flag at its head office in Zurich in support of the LGBTQIA +community.
Iranian Qatar fans were detained for having worn t-shirts bearing the slogan “women, life, freedom” or the name of Mahsa AminiA 22-year-old Iranian who died in police custody in Tehran earlier that year after being arrested for not having worn her Hijab in accordance with government standards. It is indisputable that messaging on these t-shirts was political. But there were also the actions of the Qatar authorities in the detention of those who wore them.
The 2034 male World Cup will be staged by Saudi Arabia, Another FIFA decision which led to serious criticism of human rights campaign groups. FIFA has also concluded large sponsorship agreements with Aramco, the Saudi State Petroleum and Gas Company, and the public investment fund, the Sovereign Sadi Wealth Fund who is also the majority owner of Newcastle United. Already, infantino’s relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is a subject of increasing dismay in the game.
As for Russia in 2018, as for Qatar in 2022, the financial increase in these commercial transactions is largely deceived. The political cost is never disclosed.
We should expect the organization of major tournaments – whether in Russia, Qatar, the United States, Saudi Arabia or elsewhere – should force FIFA and its president to work closely with the management of the host nation. But more and more, it seems that football is motivated by geopolitical interests and diplomatic relations behind them.
The football authorities are happy to do politics when it suits them, then, down a hat, or the appearance of a hostile slogan or a curious journalist, to set up obstacles by saying: “No politics, please”.
Germany protests from being prevented from expressing expressions on human rights problems in Qatar 2022 (Ina Fassbender / AFP via Getty Images)
But at a global level, the game could hardly be more politically compromised than it has become, welcoming male World Cups in Russia and Qatar, and choosing to do it in Saudi Arabia in 2034. And if someone was naive enough to imagine the tournament led by the United States in 2026 would be free from such political luggage, then the increasingly public proximity of the Trump-infant These illusions.
Even 24 hours later, images of the Oval Office Wednesday are an uncomfortable visualization.
So that the sports teams are guests at the White House are hardly a new phenomenon, but expecting these players and officials of Juventus to stand there while Trump talks about the threat of war – or perhaps that he has his head obediently, then laugh at other times, like Infantino, was without bankruptcy – was extraordinary.
It would be wonderful to imagine a world in which sport and politics were separated. But this is a time when we saw football clubs bought by politicians, oligarchs, sheikhs and sovereign funds. When the leaders of the game are in Thrall for world leaders, when so many major decisions concerning its future seem to have geopolitical considerations in their hearts, the reverse is true.
Soccer? To use Trump’s sentence, it is largely sold.
(Top Photo: Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)