Gianni Infantino’s World Cup meddling could spell the end of the FIFA chief.
Swede Jonas Eriksson, who spent 18 years as a top ref, told talkSPORT’s Jim White and Simon Jordan that the current tournament has featured an alarming lack of integrity.
Infantino was widely criticised for his decision to review USMNT star Folarin Balogun’s suspension amid political interference from President Donald Trump.
England icon Gary Lineker called his position ‘untenable’ and there is growing pressure from UEFA as a potential war brews between the governing bodies.
“Well, we have been witnessing things I never thought I would witness as a spectator, as an ex-referee, as a pundit,” said Eriksson, who officiated at the 2014 World Cup. “We’ve seen a federation FIFA actually rewriting laws of the game, accepting the demands or the claim from the US President.
“And we’re seeing people losing their faith in the game and the credibility of football as a sport is really having its challenges.
“Everything that’s happened the last week, when I first saw Donald Trump having his press conference, evaluating the performance of the referee and the red card and the suspension, I thought this must be AI. This cannot be for real. This must be AI.
“And then after 10 minutes, I realized this is for real. And then we’ve seen a circus which is still going on.
“And I think that football, everyone who follows football, who loves football, who’s passionate about football, we are the losers.”
Eriksson thinks it is time for UEFA to act, and pointed at recent examples of European football chiefs walking their own path.
“Well, I think there’s a need for not only one country or two countries or three countries to have different opinions,” he added. “I think a whole continent, a whole confederation needs to get together, such as Europe, UEFA.
“I think you could see that now on a daily basis, that whenever FIFA says something goes in one direction, they go left, UEFA goes right. Whether it’s covering the mouth, FIFA says red card, UEFA says yellow card. If Omar Ardhan is not being accepted into the US, he’s being sent home, he’s being appointed by UEFA to the Super Cup final.
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“You could see these small, small gestures and small, small incidents that happen. And I think that if one country would go against FIFA or two countries, they would be, in a way, punished. You would see that politically, that they will have a tough time.
“But if one continent, a strong continent such as UEFA, will be united, I think they have to accept that we’ve come to the end of the road. This is not good for football, this is not good for the sport, for the integrity of the sport. It’s absolutely unacceptable as well.”
Jordan thinks that when the dust settles, other priorities could get in the way of coordinated and sustained action.
“It’s all about appetite to carry on the fight,” he explained. “When all of the embers stop glowing, the tournament drops away and people forget about things and domestic life comes back into play, domestic leagues start to fire up.
“The obvious conclusion is that UEFA, the European teams, given the fact that the major transgression, which was the American player, being re-established for the Belgium game and Belgium being a member of the European bloc, if you have a whole cohort of countries that UEFA can pull together to resist the continuation of the Infantino regime, but not just the Infantino regime, the structure of FIFA, so it becomes a far more transparent and best-in-class version of itself, that’s the only way you’re going to do it.
“My fear is that there’s a lot of noise, a lot of intensity, whilst the tournament goes on, but once the tournament turns off and people go back to going through the everyday circumstances of football, then it becomes less and less of a motivation for people to do it.”
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Eriksson firmly shut down any talk of referee bias after Egypt’s complaints from the controversial defeat to Argentina, and thinks the officials have been caught in the crossfire.
“As soon as anyone, whether it’s a coach, a manager or a spectator, accuses FIFA or the game for having problems with its credibility, when you accuse someone for having an agenda, it is a problem,” he said. “And what has happened the last few days is that people believe there is an agenda.
“They believe that there’s a conspiracy. They believe that certain things are happening because they could point at Balogun and the incidents where Trump and [White House World Cup boss Andrew] Giuliani were accusing the referee of being bribed or having a history which was everything else but fair.”
The former whistler and author of ‘House of Cards: The Dirty Game Behind the Game’ says that ultimately Infantino is to blame.
He added: “To be honest, the situation for the coming matches in the tournaments is extremely difficult.
“Because whatever you do, you will be accused in any direction. Whether you give a penalty or not. So you have made an environment for the referees.
“It’s difficult enough. 300 decisions within 90 minutes. You’re running at high speed with a pulse of 85 percent of your maximum pulse. It’s a lot of pressure.
“And if you are being accused for having sympathies or conspiracy theories, it will be even more difficult. So it’s much tougher today than it was in the past.
“You could say a lot of things about Sepp Blatter and his way of leading FIFA. But what has happened over the last eight to 10 years with the Infantino and the refereeing side, and this is what happened the last week, it’s sad.
“Because the credibility is the most important currency for a referee. And when you don’t have it, it’s a problem.”
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