Infantino’s FIFA Has Arms; The Question Is Whether He Has Virtù

FIFA’s statement after the Morocco meeting tells me more than all the sermons around it. The leadership apologises to 211 member associations for mishandling a World Cup spinoff, then “reaffirms its full support” for its president. In the same breath, it denounces a “concerted” effort to unseat him, insists he was “democratically elected” and “continues to serve with their mandate,” and warns that attempts to remove him must go through the vote of all 211 members. This is not contrition. It is a boundary. When a prince apologises with one hand and counts his soldiers with the other, believe the hand that counts.

In every principality I have known, survival depends first on those who hold the real arms. At FIFA, the arms are not lances but votes, budgets, and the power to recognise or exclude. By this measure, the president is not naked. He is unanimously backed by the 54 African associations; South America’s confederation says it will reject any attempt to remove him without the full 211‑member vote; the leadership body publicly stands with him. These are not mercenaries. They have their own interests, tied to his mandate and to the revenues he promised. As I wrote in The Prince, in W. K. Marriott’s translation, “good laws and good arms” are the foundations; here we see at least the arms.

Opposed to this stands UEFA and some northern voices, saying they have “lost confidence,” calling for resignation, speaking of lost “institutional trust.” In my time these were the great barons and rich merchants of a city, whose palaces dominate the square but whose numbers are few. Their discontent matters because it commands prestige, money, and the ear of certain chroniclers; it does not yet decide the succession. In the Discourses on Livy, in Ninian Hill Thomson’s translation, I argued that the clash of the great and the people, if well ordered, strengthens liberty. Here we have a clash that is not ordered at all, but spills into the streets in the form of leaks and accusations.

Notice how both sides fight over the same weapon: legitimacy. UEFA and the Norwegian president speak of “institutional trust”; FIFA answers with “democratically elected,” “mandate,” and “established democratic processes.” Each knows that most spectators judge by appearances, not by depositions. If the story becomes that a president clings to office by procedural tricks against a virtuous elite, he is weakened; if the story becomes that a few grandees try to overturn the choice of 211 associations through insinuation, they are isolated. Reputation here is not decoration. It is coin that pays for obedience.

Still, the whole quarrel springs from an error of virtù. The proposal to sell a share of World Cup commercial rights for many billions has collapsed; FIFA itself apologises for mishandling it. This means the prince sought to introduce a new mode—turning tournaments into an asset for outside buyers—without first securing the arms to defend it. He prepared neither the ground among the associations nor the shield against the inevitable scandal. In The Prince I compared fortuna to a flooding river that destroys those who have built no dykes in fair weather. A leader who ventures a vast commercial reform must expect the waters to rise and must already have the channels dug.

What, then, should we expect him to do? The statement promises to “challenge directly and vigorously” any inaccurate reporting. That is the lion. The apology and appeal to democratic forms is the fox. But to alternate snarls and legalisms without addressing the offended grandees or the suspicious public is to walk the middle course I despise. Either he must bring enough of UEFA and its allies back inside the tent—by sharing information, adjusting the reform, even sacrificing some intimates—or he must accept open war and beat them in the arena of the 211. A prince who half-conciliates and half-threatens multiplies his enemies while dividing his friends.

His position is therefore precarious but not yet desperate. He has numbers, regions, and formal rules on his side; his adversaries have scandal, stature, and a louder trumpet. If he can turn his institutional majority into visible, disciplined support—public endorsements, united votes, a clear and limited new proposal—then the attempt to unseat him may collapse into the usual grumbling of disappointed nobles. If he hesitates, lets each fresh allegation stand unanswered while he hides behind procedures, the perception of rot will outrun the reality, and the 211 who today defend their prerogative may soon look for a new instrument. Power in such bodies rarely falls; more often it is quietly transferred when the man no longer fits the times.