FIFA President Gianni Infantino attacked "fake news" and alleged media "FIFA bashing" in his address to the congress in Bahrain on Thursday, according to David Conn of the London GUARDIAN. In a "highly combative speech," despite "further damage done" to FIFA’s credibility and reputation for anti-corruption following the "abrupt removal" this week of both ethics committee chairs, Infantino "blamed the media for distorting the coverage of his attempts to rebuild the scandal-hit organisation." He said, "Sadly, the truth is not necessarily what is true, but what people believe. There is a lot of fake news and alternative facts about FIFA circulating. FIFA bashing has become a national sport in some countries." Addressing the assembled FAs from 209 countries worldwide, Infantino "mixed an anti-corruption message with an attack on the media familiar from the denials of the Sepp Blatter years." Infantino "did not refer to any specific reports in the media." He has faced criticism this week after the sudden removal of the ethics committee chairs, Hans-Joachim Eckert and Cornel Borbély, who said that it "incapacitated" and "neutralized" FIFA’s anti-corruption efforts, and "denounced it as political" (GUARDIAN, 5/11). In London, Luke Brown reported Infantino said that FIFA has "worked hard to rebuild its credibility" after controversies, but "railed against the press and his critics in an extraordinary speech that made use of the same kind of rhetoric" U.S. President Donald Trump "has become infamous for." He said, "We are trying to rebuild FIFA’s reputation after all that happened. We took over the organization at its deepest point." He also "took aim" at those who have tried to reform FIFA in the past. The governing body has "spent millions of pounds hiring experts to protect its damaged reputation and to reclaim funds from corrupt officials, but with limited success." Infantino: "In the past, many highly-paid experts, paid millions, have been hired by FIFA to help reform FIFA. Let me ask you, 'What did they do?' They simply rubber stamped a sick and corrupt system" (INDEPENDENT, 5/11).
OFFERING PRAISE: REUTERS' Simon Evans reported while suggesting FIFA's internal experts had failed, Infantino "offered praise" for outside investigations, thanking "courts all around the world" that had prosecuted corruption cases. He said, "We need your help and we count on your help. If there's anyone in this room or outside of this room who still thinks he can enrich himself, that he can abuse football, I have one clear and strong message to tell him: Leave football and leave football now. We don't want you" (REUTERS, 5/11).
DEFENDING FIRINGS: BLOOMBERG's Tariq Panja reported Infantino "defended the controversial decision" to replace the ethics leaders, saying that the ousted duo had "failed in their task of identifying those responsible for the biggest corruption scandal in the organization's history." Without naming Eckert and Borbély, Infantino said that it took outside agencies, not FIFA's "highly paid experts," to find the culprits. He said, "Where were all these self-proclaimed good governance and compliance gurus? We will not accept any good governance lesson from any of these individuals who've miserably failed." Borbély and Eckert dispute that they "overcharged for their work," saying that they were paid "less than 20 times what FIFA compensates outside law firms in the U.S. and Switzerland" (BLOOMBERG, 5/11).
NOT SEEING IT: Evans also reported Infantino has "failed to change the way the organization is run," according to Jordanian Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a former candidate for world football's top job. At FIFA's annual congress, Infantino declared, "New FIFA is a transparent organization. ... It is a deeply honest organization." But shortly after the end of the congress, Prince Ali said that the organization "remained in deep trouble." He said, "I think it is fairly obvious that a lot of things have not changed. I am not going to judge anyone but what I will say is that the system, the way business is conducted is the same. I don’t see the refreshing change, the openness, the transparency that everybody talks about really taking effect on the ground" (REUTERS, 5/11).
