Donald Trump’s pal, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, is appealing to top administration officials to help him keep his job as he faces a mutiny over his failed plot to sell a stake in the World Cup to a firm connected to the U.S. president’s inner circle.
FIFA executives and regional soccer associations alike are calling for Infantino’s removal over his plan to sell a $20 billion minority stake in the World Cup to a group of investors led by Thrive Capital, which is run by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s younger brother Joshua.
The deal would have reportedly netted Infantino a commissioner role with a $30 million salary—or five times his current salary of $6 million—but was abandoned after near-universal outrage.
Faced with an open revolt against his leadership, Infantino, 56, is now hoping Trump insiders can prevent his ousting, The New York Post reported.
He has repeatedly tried and failed to reach Trump, 80, by phone since the deal collapsed on Friday, and has instead scheduled a call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio for Monday.
“He wanted to get online with the secretary and talk about how soccer can be a form of soft power for America,” an insider briefed on the matter told the Post. “But we all know that it is about job protection. It is not about anything else at this point.”
Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson denied the report in a post on X.
“There are no plans for @SecRubio to speak with Infantino and there is no call this morning,” he wrote. “@nypost should check their sources or they could have just asked us.”
Rubio joined Trump and Infantino for this year’s World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The Swiss-born soccer administrator has been friends with the president for years and spent much of the lead-up to this year’s World Cup flattering the president.
He held press conferences in the Oval Office, allowed Trump to keep last year’s Club World Cup champions trophy, and even invented a fake FIFA “Peace Prize” specifically for Trump.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
All of that courting was intended to guarantee a smoother World Cup, which was held this summer in cities across North America, but has so far failed to stop the fallout from the privatization plan.
The powerful Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the governing body for 55 national soccer associations, has called for Infantino to resign, and officials at FIFA have launched a campaign nicknamed “Project Kill the Monster” to force him out, according to the Post.
FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour told the AP on Friday that he wasn’t aware of the secret talks to create a new subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise to manage the privatization plan, and that he felt “deceived” by Infantino.
UEFA has also threatened legal action and demanded that Infantino and other FIFA officials “preserve all documents” related to the abandoned deal, the BBC reported.
When reached by the Daily Beast for comment, a spokesperson for FIFA said the organization “does not comment on speculation regarding internal relationships.”
