Gianni Infantino's Legal Troubles: A Shift in Power

“Tell Mike it was just business. I always liked him.”

The line from The Godfather hangs over this saga now because, for the first time, it feels like it might apply to Gianni Infantino. For years, the Fifa president has moved through the corridors of power as if untouchable, a man who could always get someone else “off the hook”. This week, the sense is different. This week, it feels as though the hook is his.

Infantino has been under siege for almost six weeks, ever since details emerged of his covert plan to offload football’s greatest shared asset – the World Cup – on terms that allegedly suited private interests and his own pay packet more than the game he is meant to safeguard. The accusations are brutal: “criminal mismanagement”, an undervaluing of the tournament, and a structure that would have delivered him a huge personal salary.

There has been plenty of noise since then. Angry columns. Grim-faced TV pundits. A stern public rebuke from Mikaël Silvestre, no less. The gnats have been buzzing. But gnats don’t bring down presidents. Hard power does.

And that is where the mood has changed.

Trump’s man looks exposed

For years Infantino has styled himself as the global dealmaker, the man who sold the world. First once, then again, most recently to Donald Trump in exchange for a peace prize push, a flattering presence at the edges of US power and a role as the gleaming bald emissary in the photo-ops.

It always looked brazen. It now looks brittle.

Give it a month, you could imagine the routine: Infantino at the lectern, arms whirling like a street conjuror, reciting the usual script about caring and sharing, égalité, fraternité and fiscal stimulus, those flat, painted-on eyes staring out from behind the papier-mache mask of authority. You don’t buy me out. I buy you out.

But the script has shifted. Not because of another moral broadside. Because Uefa has chosen a different weapon: the courts.

Uefa’s lawsuit in the US may not be designed for a clean knockout. It may not even be built to win outright. Instead it looks like a clever piece of chess – a zugzwang. Force your opponent to move when every available square is dangerous.

The danger has one word: discovery.

The Kushner crack in the armour

The first sign of serious movement came from Florida. Josh Kushner, the financier behind the Fifa Forward deal, suddenly found himself named in discovery. The money man just happens to be the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Pure coincidence, of course.

This week Josh Kushner stepped back. Publicly. He said he “would not have gotten involved” had he known the full picture. He called the whole affair regrettable. On the surface, those are calm, lawyered words. Underneath, they sound like someone edging away from the blast zone.

Kushner has also brought in Alex Spiro, a lawyer you hire when the stakes are nuclear. Spiro defended Elon Musk when he called a cave diver “a pedo”, and Alec Baldwin after a fatal on-set shooting. You don’t pick that kind of representation if you think this is a minor misunderstanding.

Fifa’s reaction has been just as telling. In its own filing this week, the organisation denounced the entire case as a “smear campaign”. Then it said the quiet part out loud: it is desperate to resist discovery.

That is the heart of it. Nobody in Infantino’s camp wants discovery – the forced sharing of internal documents, emails, memos, text messages fired off from a golf course after lunch. The everyday paper trail of how power really works.

Those in charge always fear that moment. Anyone orbiting Trump fears it even more.

The Trump factor: in, then out

Trump’s early public support for Infantino was loudly reported when it appeared on Truth Social in early August. Look closer and it already felt hedged. The message boiled down to this: if, “for any reason”, Fifa removed Infantino, that would be terrible. The endorsement was conditional. The silence since has been deafening.

The Gianni–Trump bromance once looked like a perfect fit: the beaming bald operator and the former president, looming beside him like a walking advertisement for deep-fried Americana in an oversized suit, calling Infantino “a very tall, very handsome man”. Two men in a Brooks Brothers knitwear fantasy, laughing as they carved up the world’s game.

But Trump’s universe has only one rule: winners and losers. There is no loyalty beyond usefulness. The Guardian once listed Trump’s enemies who later found themselves facing charges, exile, revoked clearances, fraud investigations. Some of them had been among his brightest golden boys.

Michael Cohen said he would “take a bullet” for Trump. He ended up imprisoned, disbarred, cast out. Jeff Sessions hailed Trumpism as “a movement”. Trump later called him weak, confused, dumb, an idiot, a disgrace, even “mentally retarded”. The pattern is simple. When you’re in, you’re in. When you’re out, you barely exist.

Right now, Infantino looks like a man Trump might one day claim not to remember.

Inside the box

Uefa’s case goes to the core of Fifa’s recent direction. It alleges that the World Cup was sold too cheaply and that Infantino stood to benefit handsomely from the structure of the deal. The governing body wants discovery from Fifa, from Thrive Capital, and from Greg Maffei, a Trump donor and deal adviser. All of them will have records from the period when Infantino enjoyed intoxicating access to the White House and beyond.

The attempt is clear: prise open the box and see what’s inside.

The image that comes to mind is the Club World Cup trophy – an unsettling object, all sharp edges and strange corners, as if it might conceal a hidden drawer full of human toenails. Do you really want to see what’s in there? And once you look, is anyone safe?

That is why discovery terrifies Infantino’s camp. It is not about one contract or one email. It is about exposing how decisions were made, who leaned on whom, who signed off what and why. Once that light goes on, it is hard to control where it shines.

A president on the road

Infantino is doing what embattled presidents always do. He is travelling. He is visiting the outer provinces of his empire, shaking hands, posing for photos, reminding the smaller federations who controls the taps of funding and tournaments.

Saudi Arabia has offered support – but with a qualifier, “at this time …”. There is a Fifa congress in November. On paper, votes will matter. In reality, the question is whether votes are still the real currency here, or whether the real jeopardy lies in court filings and subpoenaed inboxes.

The history of football politics offers a warning. Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini did not fall to a wave of angry speeches or a drip of bad headlines. They were undone by a single illegal payment allegation that seemed to come from nowhere. One shot. Direct hit.

This case may yet fizzle out. Legal challenges often do. Settlements are reached. Claims are narrowed. Judges say no. Uefa may never land the knockout blow it has hinted at.

But it does not need to. It only needs to keep pushing, to keep the coals hot, to make it clear that someone will keep raking through the ashes. When that happens, things have a habit of turning up – sometimes from the most unexpected places.

“Today I settle all the family business,” Michael Corleone says, just before the reckoning begins.

Infantino has spent years acting like the man at the head of the table. The question now is whether he is about to find out what it feels like to be on the other side of that line.