Gianni Infantino talks up the Club World Cup at Trump Tower – ‘We will make it better’

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In the gold-plated lobby of Trump Tower, the mixed-use skyscraper that is now the Manhattan base for FIFA employees in New York City, the president of global football’s governing body, Gianni Infantino, held court on Saturday morning.

These days, Infantino rarely deigns to attend conventional press conferences. He did not hold one at the FIFA Congress in either of the past two years and this event, held to mark the final weekend of the expanded Club World Cup, did not represent an exercise of deep scrutiny. FIFA’s director of communications told the journalists present to ask only about that tournament, which means Infantino is still to face significant questioning over how exactly the 2030 men’s World Cup has ended up being played on multiple continents across six countries or about the process that led to the 2034 edition being held in Saudi Arabia.

As ever with Infantino, a press conference begins with a speech.

He began by telling those gathered what the headline of the event ought to be. “Where can I start?,” he said. “If you want the title, as we are in Trump Tower, then you can say, ‘The golden era of global club football has started’.”

He continued: “We can definitely say that this FIFA Club World Cup has been a huge, huge, huge success.”

Infantino, who has been telling his Instagram followers about the “epic” and “spectacular” success of his brainchild, acknowledged there have been different opinions on the tournament. “We hear a lot of positive opinions — some negative, of course.” Jurgen Klopp, the former Liverpool manager, has called it the worst idea in the history of the sport, for example.

Standing behind Infantino at this press event — which FIFA billed as a “media scrum” — were “FIFA legends” Ronaldo, Kaka, Alessandro Del Piero, Roberto Baggio, Esteban Cambiasso and Hristo Stoichkov. Those players are not paid an income by FIFA, the organization insists, but they have received stays at expensive hotels and match tickets while attending this tournament.

Their role during today’s event appeared to be as high-profile backup to Infantino.

The generous interpretation is that they are well-placed to provide expertise from a player’s perspective but as they nodded along with the FIFA president and spoke in support of the Club World Cup, their contributions also reduced the number of questions he was compelled to answer over the course of the session’s 45 minutes.

Infantino speaks in front of the FIFA Legends at Trump Tower (Eva Marie Uzcategui – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

Before any questions could be asked, Infantino embarked on a victory lap. He said people doubted this tournament would happen, but “it did happen successfully”. He said doubters had predicted “nobody” would go to the games “and yet, almost 2.5 million spectators” have been in the stadiums over the past month. He said the Club World Cup’s average attendance had been around 40,000 per game and did not acknowledge the pricing models that appeared to alienate many supporters from going to matches in the group stage, which often saw tens of thousands of empty seats at individual fixtures.

He said there is no league in the world, besides England’s Premier League, which averages 40,000 spectators. The caveats he did not raise are that there are few leagues which play in venues that are mostly NFL-size capacity, nor do most happen in a country of 350 million people such as the United States.

On we went, with Infantino very much on the front foot. He claimed unspecified critics had said nobody would broadcast this competition but he’d proved the naysayers wrong once more — “a one-of-a-kind revolutionary contract with DAZN”. Though he made no mention of the $1billion investment into DAZN from Saudi Arabia shortly after the company injected $1billion into FIFA to show the Club World Cup, which itself was not too long after Saudi was awarded hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup.

As for the members of the media in the audience (standing behind a cordon as Infantino paraded up on the stage), well, the acoustics in the Trump Tower lobby are not exactly ideal conditions. A coffee machine nearby drowned out some of Infantino’s words and the microphones did not always seem to work.

He claimed “we will have, after the final tomorrow, between two and three billion viewers all over the world who enjoy this top, top, top quality football”, but that statement seemed questionable without any supporting evidence to explain how he defines a viewer, or the platforms involved.

Infantino then hailed the financial benefits of the tournament, praising the $2.1billion (£1.6bn) generated in revenues, across the TV deal, sponsorship, ticketing and other income. “For 63 matches, the basic average is $33million per match. There is no other club competition in the world today that comes anywhere close. It is already the most successful club competition on all different measures,” he claimed.

He also told us that “we didn’t have one single incident” during the tournament, a remark which appears to forget Real Madrid defender Antonio Rudiger alleging racist abuse by Pachuca defender Gustavo Cabral (who denied it), or an in-stadium warning for supporters during Monterrey’s last-16 tie against Borussia Dortmund, where FIFA announced the game could be suspended after homophobic chanting from the stands.

(Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

When the questions finally began, almost 15 minutes into the event, Infantino did acknowledge some challenges. He said his view on the less-satisfactory attendances is that he would rather have 35,000 people in an 80,000-capacity stadium than deprive fans of opportunities to attend by using some of America’s smaller, soccer-specific arenas.

He also recognised that the weather has presented issues. He admitted he is “sweating” wearing a suit and tie in the U.S. summer heat, and insisted the “health of the players is important”.

Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez has described the temperatures that some games have been played in during the tournament as having made him “dizzy” and “very dangerous”. Real Madrid defender Trent Alexander-Arnold said matches that began in the afternoon left him “overheating” and struggling to “think straight”.

Infantino said: “Of course, the heat is an issue. Last year, at the Olympic Games in Paris, games during the day, in all sports, took place in very hot conditions.

“Cooling breaks are very important and we will see what we can do, but we have stadiums with roofs and we will definitely use these stadiums during the day (at the men’s national team World Cup, being co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico) next year.”

As for FIFA’s new office in Trump Tower, Infantino showered yet more praise on the U.S. president.

Infantino told of Trump’s support for football (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Infantino said: “President Trump will be at the final. He loves soccer — in his first term as president, there was a soccer goal in the White House garden.

“President Trump is the president of the U.S., one of the host countries for the (2026) World Cup, and he immediately embraced the Club World Cup as well.”

As for the future of this tournament, with the next edition currently scheduled for 2029, Infantino hinted changes may be afoot but shirked direct questions. He said he would love to have Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Barcelona, Napoli and Milan involved. He said he had clubs calling him to try to sneak into the competition when the Mexican side Leon were kicked out before it began for regulatory reasons.

When asked by The Athletic about suggestions this tournament could actually be played every two years, not every four, he talked about “living in the moment” rather than looking ahead. He certainly did not take the chance to rule it out, in a vague answer that will cause tremors among the UEFA executives concerned that this competition may one day threaten the hegemony of the Champions League.

“In the future, we will see what it brings us,” he said. “We will make it better. We may have received some justified criticism. There are many elements we can think about, but that will be for later on.”

(Top photo: Etsuo Hara/Getty Images)

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