While President Trump welcomed dignitaries and business leaders on Tuesday during his state visit to Saudi Arabia, he was met by a very familiar face: Gianni Infantino, president of the football director, FIFA, who is a loyal fundaler since Mr. Trump’s first term.
The close relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Infantino, a Swiss-Italian football administrator, has eyebrows for years in football circles and beyond. Friendship seems to go beyond one between a leader of a host nation of the World Cup-the United States co-hostering the next edition of the Quadrian tournament in 2026 with Mexico and Canada-and the world football chief.
Wednesday, Mr. Infantino will join Mr. Trump at the second stage of his presidential tour of the Gulf States in Qatar, the in-the-way peninsula bordering Saudi Arabia which welcomed the World Cup in 2022. The football boss should chair a ceremony in which the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Will Hand World World Histing Donties to Mr. Trump.
Representatives of Canada and Mexico should not be present. At the White House last week, Trump, whose prices have delighted tensions with the two American neighbors, joked that Mr. Infantino had correctly minimized their roles in the World Cup.
The trips of Mr. Infantino with Trump this week surprised FIFA members, who brought together thousands of kilometers in Paraguay for the annual organization of the organization. A meeting of the FIFA Board of Directors in Paraguay which had been set this week has been in a hurry to a video conference so that Mr. Infantino can travel with the American delegation in the Gulf.
“The president of FIFA has accepted the invitations to attend a series of important events with world leaders, where FIFA World Cups will also be discussed,” FIFA said in a statement. Mr. Infantino should now go to Paraguay to welcome the congress on Thursday, which had been pushed by one hour to welcome changes.
Mr. Infantino also exercised his own close links with the Gulf since his management of FIFA Scandal in 2016. Although he promised to clean the organization, his mandate led to a more in -depth examination of the way in which the football organization leads its business, in particular after having changed its rules last year to allow Saudi Arabia, a large financial sponsor of the organization, to be granted 2034.
The ceremony in Qatar complies with how Mr. Infantino focused on Mr. Trump as a pillar of the tournament next year. It would not be the first time that he has put the central president on stage.
In 2020, Mr. Infantino was in a way an act of warm -up for a dinner organized by Mr. Trump during his first mandate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He was in Dubai later that year when Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement to normalize relations, an agreement negotiated by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.
Last year, Mr. Infantino instructed Mr. Trump Ivanka Trump’s daughter to have participated in the draw for a new club tournament, the club World Cup, which will be played for the first time this summer in the United States.
Mr. Infantino was on stage for the inauguration of Mr. Trump in January, and temporarily gave the golden trophy decorated with the club World Cup at the White House, where he was exhibited next to the resolved office.
