The chief of the players Union explodes Gianni Infantino, compares him to the brutal emperor Nero
FIFPro chief Sergio Marchi launched a scathing attack on FIFA president Gianni Infantino, comparing him to Nero and accusing him of placing “economic profitability on human sustainability”.
Infantino’s latest original idea, the club’s World Cup ended last night with Chelsea beating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the New Jersey final with the world football chief pursuing his charming offensive with Donald Trump by inviting the American president to distribute the trophy.
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The tournament arrived at the end of a long European season and with many players who need a break before leaving next month in a 2025-26 campaign that ends with the World Cup.
It was also played for a summer in the northern hemisphere with stifling temperatures imposing even more important physical requirements on the players.
There were “negatives”, said Infantino
Before the final, Infantino admitted that there had been “negatives” but has always marked the club World Cup the “most successful club competition in the world”.
Marchi, whose organization was not invited to a briefing before the tournament on the well-being of the players, did not agree and compared Infantino to the Roman emperor Nero who was in renown for a sumptuous extravagance and his contempt for human life.
He said: “What was presented as a world celebration of football was nothing more than a fiction created by FIFA, promoted by its president, without dialogue, sensitivity and respect for those who support the game with their daily efforts.
“A grandiloquent staging inevitably recalling the” bread and circuses “of Nero Rome, the entertainment for the masses while behind the scenes, precariousness and lack of protection for real protagonists approved.”
FIFA must learn the lessons of the Club World Cup – Marchi
FIFA has already revealed that it would use places inside and air-conditioned for daylights during the next summer World Cup which will also take place in the United States.
And Marchi hopes that other lessons will be learned.
He added: “What happened can in no case be repeated during the World Cup next year.
“We warn the overcrowded calendar, the lack of physical and mental rest for the players and the lack of dialogue on the part of FIFA. This way of organizing tournaments, without listening to the Federation which represents associations of professional footballers in the world, is unilateral, authoritarian and based solely on a logic of economic profitability, not human sustainability.
“We cannot continue to play with players’ health to feed a marketing machine. There is no possible spectacle if the voices of the protagonists are silenced. ”
