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      Indonesia Stripped of Under-20 World Cup After Israel Protests

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      FIFA stripped Indonesia of this year’s Under-20 World Cup after government officials and protesters called for the exclusion of Israel’s team.Indonesia was stripped of a world championship soccer tournament on Wednesday amid protests over the participation of Israel’s team.Indonesia had been scheduled to host the Under-20 World Cup, an event for the best young players in the world, from May 20 to June 11. Israel has qualified for the tournament for the first time, but that result proved to be fraught in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel.Some government officials and protesters had called on the Israeli team to be excluded, leading to the cancellation of the tournament’s draw, which had been set for Friday. On Monday, conservative Muslim protesters marched in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, carrying signs and chanting slogans objecting to Israel’s presence in the event.After a meeting between the leaders of soccer’s global governing body, FIFA, and the Indonesian soccer federation on Wednesday in Qatar failed to resolve the dispute, FIFA said in a statement that Indonesia would not host the event “due to the current circumstances.”FIFA said the dates of the tournament would remain unchanged and that it would announce a new host “as soon as possible.” Indonesia could face further penalties, including a possible ban from qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.Twenty-four countries are set to participate in the under-20 championship, including the United States. The tournament is an important steppingstone for stars of the future; Lionel Messi was named the most valuable player of the 2005 event, matching the 1979 award won by Diego Maradona.The tournament had been planned for six stadiums in Indonesia, and Israel was expected to play in Bali. But Bali’s governor, Wayan Koster, wrote to the nation’s sports ministry asking it to bar Israel from playing in his region.That led to the postponement of the tournament’s draw, which had been scheduled to be held in Bali.The under-20 championships, last held in 2019, is normally played every two years. But the 2021 event — also set to be held in Indonesia — was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic and rescheduled for this year. More

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      Gianni Infantino Is Re-elected, Unopposed, as FIFA President

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      The Swiss administrator, a contentious figure in the soccer world, had no rivals for the position and was crowned for another four years by acclamation.Gianni Infantino, a contentious figure in the soccer world, secured a new term on Thursday as the president of FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, after an election in which he was the only candidate.Infantino, 52, was crowned for another four years by acclamation, with representatives from all but a small number of FIFA’s 211 national federations rising to applaud at FIFA’s annual meeting, held this year in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.After rising from relative obscurity, Infantino became soccer’s top leader in 2016 after a huge corruption scandal that mired FIFA in probably the biggest crisis in its history. FIFA rules drawn up by a group that included Mr. Infantino limit presidents to three terms of four years, but on the eve of last year’s World Cup final, he said that a review had “clarified” that his first three years in office did not count, allowing him potentially to run FIFA through 2031. Infantino took office after his longtime predecessor Sepp Blatter was forced out after just one year of his latest four year term. After confirmation of his re-election, Infantino appeared to recognize that he was not universally popular. “Those who love me, I know there are so many, and those who hate me, I know there are a few,” he said. “I love you all.” While Infantino’s time in office has stabilized the governing body, his tenure has also been marked by curious public statements and bruising battles with some of soccer’s biggest stakeholders, including clubs, leagues and unions. He has also been at the center of a power struggle with European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, where he had been the top administrator before his elevation to FIFA president.FIFA has been in an almost constant conflict with UEFA since 2018, when Infantino tried to push through a $25 billion sale of new events, including an expanded World Cup for clubs that was considered a rival to UEFA’s hugely popular Champions League.Since then, there have been other skirmishes, too, particularly when Infantino tried to push a proposal to switch the quadrennial World Cup to a biennial event. Infantino and UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, now rarely speak.Infantino congratulated Lionel Messi after Argentina won the men’s World Cup last year in Qatar. The decision, backed by Infantino, to play the World Cup in the Gulf nation was not without its critics.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesBut this week, among the delegates at the FIFA gathering in Kigali, Infantino has appeared in his element. Many of the governing body’s member nations are relatively small or midsize countries that are heavily reliant on FIFA’s largess for much of their income. Infantino also has a reputation for showcasing his relationships with politicians — including the likes of Donald J. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. In Kigali, he was joined at the congress by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.In his opening remarks on Thursday, Infantino recalled how he had traveled to Rwanda to lobby African officials during his first campaign to become FIFA president eight years ago. After being told that he could not count on their support, he said that he had been on the verge of pulling out. But, he said, a visit to a memorial to the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide had “inspired” him to stay in the race. Infantino courted controversy on the eve of the World Cup in Qatar last year with an extraordinary speech in which he lashed out at Western critics of the decision to stage the tournament in the Middle East for the first time. In Kigali, he found an ally in Kagame, who used his speech to back Infantino, making similar references to “constant hypocritical criticism.”“Instead of asking why is it being held there, first ask, ‘Why not?’” Kagame said. “Unless we are talking about a kind of entitlement that only some of us from this bloc deserve to enjoy, it’s about keeping some people in their place, but that kind of attitude should have been left far behind in history by now.”Critics of the Qatar World Cup had highlighted the deaths and mistreatment of workers hired for the grand construction projects that were built for the tournament, including several stadiums. Others drew attention to the country’s broader human rights record. Infantino was unmoved, describing the tournament as the “best ever.”The FIFA conference in Kigali has offered a microcosm of Infantino’s presidency. He was feted by local politicians and national soccer executives, but drew criticism once more from farther afield. An announcement this week that the 2026 World Cup in North America, the first 48-team tournament and the first expansion of the event since 1998, would be extended further by adding 24 games more than planned was met by fury from groups representing leagues around the world. They offered what has become a familiar rebuke of Infantino’s FIFA: that the governing body announces major changes without consulting the groups involved.Before delegates were asked to show their support for Infantino, the FIFA president made another speech outlining the organization’s achievements and the ways in which it had successfully staged the World Cup and planned for new ones. He also reminded officials that FIFA had budgeted for record revenues of $11 billion over a four-year cycle to 2026, a figure that he said “will increase further by a few billion.”At voting time, Infantino was backed by most of the room, including by delegates from his fiercest critics, such as the federations of the Netherlands and of England.The Norwegian delegation, however, followed through on a promise not to rise to acclaim him, with its president, Lise Klaveness, saying on the eve of the election that Infantino had “failed to walk the talk” on his promised reforms. More

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      FIFA President Gianni Infantino Knows How to Win

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      KIGALI, Rwanda — Presidential politics hardly matter when so many voters want to be Gianni Infantino’s friend.Watch the soccer officials angle for handshakes and face time in stadium suites and marbled lobbies. See the federation presidents pull Infantino aside to thank him for the latest round of funding he has delivered. Glimpse the leaders from smaller soccer nations congratulate him on his successful effort to expand the men’s World Cup, spinning up more opportunity but also ever more money.Infantino, the president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, greets them all with a wide smile. In these moments he is in his element, a confident politician nearing a decade in charge of the world’s most popular sport, forever leading it, or lording over it, depending on one’s opinion of him.“Trust me, he truly is a gift to football and humanity,” Amaju Pinnick, a member of the FIFA Council, the organization’s governing board, said after FIFA suggested The New York Times speak with him about Infantino.Slip outside Infantino’s circle of admirers, though, and one gets a different view. Infantino’s loudest critics come mostly from the European leagues, players’ unions and teams that dominate world soccer, and from the continent’s governing body, which has grown to see FIFA as a competitor rather than a partner.They describe a divisive figure driven by ambition whose questionable decisions and quest for legacy have produced frequent conflicts, flawed ideas and unnecessary drama. Their problem is there is little they can do to stop him: Europe’s leagues, players’ unions and teams don’t get a vote in FIFA elections.That is why Infantino’s supporters and his adversaries agree on one thing: He will be re-elected as FIFA’s president at a meeting of the organization’s 211 member nations on Thursday. The outcome, they all know, is a foregone conclusion.Infantino is the only candidate on the ballot.The ReformerGianni Infantino helped rewrite the rules of the job of FIFA president. Then he ran for the job and won. Alexander Hassenstein/FIFA, via Getty ImagesInfantino arrived at FIFA in 2016 as a surprise president. A Swiss lawyer, he had been asked months earlier to join a small group of soccer officials tasked with helping FIFA navigate the biggest crisis in its history.Reeling from a corruption scandal that had brought down most of its leadership, FIFA had convened executives from across the world and given them a mission: produce reforms that would ensure soccer could never again be run according to the whims of a small pool of senior executives with unchecked power.Infantino, a trusted and familiar hand then working at soccer’s European governing body, is remembered for taking an active part in the meetings that produced what was an entirely new governance structure: bold plans that created a more formal divide between FIFA’s elected president and its top administrator, but also new policies on ethics and term limits.When it came time to fill the top job, he then emerged from a pack of contenders as a top candidate to lead the new FIFA. The head of England’s Football Association declared him a “straightforward guy.” More than 100 nations lined up to back him. Outwardly, Infantino appeared humbled by his support.“I want to be the president of all of you,” he told FIFA’s gathered federations. To bolster his credentials as a reformer, Infantino traveled on a budget airline for his first official trip as president. (The private jet travel would soon follow.)But he also rejected FIFA’s first salary offer of $2 million as “insulting,” and used one of his first major hires to appoint Fatma Samoura, a little-known former United Nations official from Senegal, to be FIFA’s secretary general. The appointment of an African woman to a previously all-male, European leadership team made for good optics, and the title made Samoura, in FIFA’s rewritten bylaws at least, the most powerful administrator in the soccer body’s history.FIFA’s rewritten bylaws were designed to grant more power to the secretary general, Fatma Samoura. But rules and reality have not always matched.Getty ImagesThe problem was that Samoura, an experienced diplomat, had little experience in the type of sponsorship and television rights deals her new job would oversee. That hardly mattered, according to multiple insiders: Infantino, they said, saw himself as a supreme leader in all but name, one who could, and would, involve himself in matters large and small. That mind-set was perhaps at its clearest last year: Instead of deputizing Samoura or another deputy to run the final months of preparations for the men’s World Cup in Qatar, Infantino simply moved to Doha, the Qatari capital, and did the job himself.Power and PositionFigures close to Infantino — he rarely gives interviews — said he had little choice but to take the hands-on approach that has defined his leadership.“He inherited a mess because of the actions of the previous administration, and he has led FIFA out of that mess,” said Victor Montagliani, the head of CONCACAF, one of soccer’s six regional confederations. Carlos Cordeiro, the former U.S. Soccer president who is now a senior adviser to Infantino, described him as an “agent of change.”Seven years after he won the presidency, Infantino’s grip on power is clear. He is about to stroll to another term, and his popularity is unquestioned among the only constituency that matters: the leaders of the 211 national federations who hold a vote in FIFA elections.Without an opponent — an increasingly common feature of soccer elections — he most likely will be elected through acclamation on Thursday, with members asked to applaud him rather than vote. Many will do so happily.A broad sense of approval for Infantino’s tenure is — at least publicly — shared widely, particularly among the dozens of small nations that rely on the millions Infantino and FIFA direct back to them to meet their annual budgets.Infantino’s support, though, is hardly unanimous. He has waged bruising public battles with soccer leaders from Europe and South America, in particular, and has shown a tendency to overplay his hand, including on his since-abandoned proposal to stage the World Cup every two years instead of four.Lise Klaveness, the president of Norway’s soccer federation and one of the few women to lead a soccer body, has been one of few national heads to publicly rebuke Infantino’s FIFA — calling out a “culture of fear” that she said prevents critics from speaking out. “The tone at the top is important,” she said in an interview a day before the election.She described letters sent last year by FIFA to federations urging them to endorse Infantino, which she said had a chilling effect on possible opponents, and confirmed that Infantino does not have Norway’s support. “He has had too many missed opportunities to walk the walk and implement the reforms he arrived with,” she said.Another frequent critic is Javier Tebas, the head of Spain’s top men’s league. During a recent visit to London he grumpily derided Infantino’s term in office by listing a number of failed schemes, including a few that have led Infantino into open conflict with Aleksander Ceferin, the head of UEFA, European soccer’s governing body.Infantino and Ceferin have hardly spoken since they first clashed in 2018, when Infantino asked the FIFA Council to grant him the authority to sign a $25 billion contract with an unknown investor — later revealed to be a Japanese fund backed by Gulf interests — to create new tournaments. A complete rupture in the relationship between the two leaders was only averted last year when Infantino backed away from a plan to ask FIFA’s membership to vote to hold the World Cup every two years.Infantino with UEFA’s Aleksander Ceferin. The two men have clashed frequently. Molly Darlington/ReutersPublic objections remain the exception, though, since such disloyalty carries a heavy cost, the leader of one national federation said. There is too much at stake, too much money and too many decisions in soccer that still run through the president’s office, a formidable position that Infantino does not want to vacate anytime soon.A day before the World Cup final in December, Infantino said at a news conference that it had been “clarified” to the FIFA Council that his first term, a period of three years after the disgraced president Sepp Blatter was forced out, did not count toward the 12-year term limit dictated by FIFA’s reforms. That clarification means Infantino could remain president for 15 years, through 2031, a development that one of his most vocal critics said “should ring alarm bells.” (European leaders are less quick to point out that UEFA also quietly changed its own rules to allow Ceferin to extend his term.)“The culture has not changed,” said Miguel Maduro, FIFA’s former governance head under Infantino and a longtime critic of the way soccer is run. “Look at the institution from the outside and what do you see? Voting is almost always unanimous. Incumbents are always re-elected and almost never challenged. Presidents that extend existing term limits.”He added: “All of this, if it were a country, would be clear evidence that there is a severe democratic defect in the electoral system and the organization of the institution.”Global ReachContrary to the spirit, and perhaps even the letter, of the guiding principles he helped draw up seven years ago, Infantino has refashioned himself as a de facto executive president, cultivating a profile that regularly brings him into the orbit of celebrity, power and wealth.He appeared to develop a particularly close relationship with Donald J. Trump, for example, visiting the White House multiple times when he was president. At the 2018 men’s World Cup in Russia, Infantino’s effect on President Vladimir V. Putin was such that the Russian leader later awarded him a state medal.Infantino and the former U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro with Donald J. Trump at the White House in August 2018. All three played key roles in delivering the 2026 tournament to North America. Doug Mills/The New York TimesEven the site of this week’s FIFA Congress feels politically savvy: Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s strongman leader, was given the privilege of hosting the presidential election after having hosted a meeting of the organization’s board in 2019. That loyalty will not go unnoticed on a continent that is home to more than a quarter of FIFA’s 211 presidential voters, each one held by a federation that now receives $8 million across each four-year World Cup cycle.FIFA listed that sevenfold increase in payments to federations first in its response to a request for Infantino to outline his biggest achievements as president.“FIFA under President Infantino stands for due processes, serious and professional approach to things,” a spokesman said on Infantino’s behalf. “Money doesn’t ‘disappear’ anymore.”There is, in fact, more of it than ever: Under Infantino, FIFA persuaded the Department of Justice that it had been a victim of the corruption of its previous leadership. As a reward, FIFA stands to collect a hefty share of a $200 million payout as restitution.Peace and ProtestWith most of his membership fully behind him, Infantino may not have winning critics over high on his agenda in his next term. Still, olive branches are in the air: Before last year’s World Cup, FIFA executives met with UEFA officials to draw up a series of “red lines” that, they hoped, might avert future crises. Infantino and Ceferin were not present at the meetings.Rather than seek a peace with soccer’s traditional powers, Infantino has sought to build new alliances instead, most recently in Gulf States like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Those relationships have helped secure millions in sponsorship income for FIFA, which continues to struggle to attract new partners from Europe or North America, but the secrecy in which the agreements have sometimes been made has been a consistent source of controversy.A satirical carnival float in Germany depicted an opinion of Infantino, and FIFA, that his allies say is outdated.Martin Meissner/Associated PressFriends like the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, have a far higher opinion of his work.Dan Mullan/Getty ImagesMost recently, Australia and New Zealand objected after learning through news media reports that FIFA was poised to sign Saudi Arabia’s tourism agency as a lead sponsor of this year’s Women’s World Cup, which the two nations will co-host. Facing blowback, the deal now appears to be on hold.Infantino’s power and electoral appeal, though, remain undimmed. Few national federations have spoken out against him, and none are publicly opposing his re-election. At least one, though, is weighing a tiny act of rebellion when Infantino stands to accept his new term, its president said.It is considering not applauding. More

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      Former Fox Employee Convicted of Bribery for Soccer Broadcast Deals

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      The employee, Hernán López, and an Argentine marketing firm were accused of helping make illegal payments for rights to tournaments in South America.After hearing seven weeks of often-impenetrable testimony about television contracts, codes of ethics and the interpretation of Spanish phrases in emails sent more than a dozen years ago, a federal jury in Brooklyn on Thursday convicted a former Fox employee and an Argentine sports marketing firm of paying bribes in exchange for lucrative soccer broadcasting contracts.Prosecutors said that Hernán López, who until 2016 worked for a unit of what was then known as 21st Century Fox, had taken part in a complex scheme to make millions of dollars in secret annual payments to the presidents of national soccer federations in order to secure the rights to the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana, widely viewed South American soccer tournaments. Full Play Group, the marketing firm, stood accused of similar but far more extensive corruption. Prosecutors said it paid bribes for the rights to World Cup qualifiers, exhibition matches, the Copa América tournament and the Copa Libertadores.The government also argued that López had taken advantage of “loyalty secured through the payment of bribes” to secure inside information that helped Fox beat out ESPN in its bid for the United States broadcasting rights for the 2018 and 2022 men’s World Cups — a theory Fox has vigorously denied. Fox was never accused of any wrongdoing.López, who holds dual American and Argentine citizenship, was convicted on one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count of wire fraud conspiracy and faces up to 40 years in prison. Full Play was convicted on six fraud and money laundering counts and, as a corporation, could face financial penalties.A third defendant, Carlos Martínez, who worked under López at Fox, was acquitted on counts of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.The convictions represent what Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, called “a resounding victory” in the Justice Department’s sweeping investigation of corruption in international soccer.After a secret inquiry began in 2010, the case broke into public view in May 2015 when sensational predawn arrests were made in Zurich, the city that FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, calls home. Since then, more than two dozen individuals and entities have voluntarily pleaded guilty to a wide variety of charges, including racketeering and wire fraud. And in 2017, a different federal jury convicted two soccer officials, from Paraguay and Brazil, on wire fraud conspiracy and other charges.Prosecutors indicted López, Martínez and Full Play in March 2020, signaling that the long-running case — which shook FIFA to the core and resulted in a shakeout of several generations of leadership in its ranks — still had legs.“The defendants cheated by bribing soccer officials to act in their own greedy interests rather than in the best interests of the sport,” Peace said in a statement following the verdict. Judge Pamela K. Chen rejected a request from prosecutors that López be taken immediately into custody, instead releasing him with tightened bond restrictions. A sentencing date has not been set.John Gleeson, a lawyer for López, said in a statement that “we are obviously disappointed with the jury’s verdict.”He continued, “The proceedings have involved both legal and factual errors, and we look forward to vindicating our client on appeal.” Lopez, who left Fox in early 2016, went on to found the podcasting company Wondery, which was sold to Amazon in 2020 in a deal that valued the company at a reported $300 million.Carlos Ortiz, a lawyer for Full Play, declined to comment. The company was founded by an Argentine father and son, Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who were charged in 2015 but were not extradited. A lawyer for Hugo Jinkis said he could not immediately comment on the news.“We are very grateful for the jury’s service,” Steven McCool, Martínez’s lead lawyer, said in a brief call after the verdict. “Carlos received justice today and it was a long time coming.”A watch party in Los Angeles for the 2022 World Cup. Fox had the U.S. English-language rights for last year’s tournament in Qatar and the 2018 tournament in Russia.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesThursday’s verdict came on the fourth day of deliberations after a complex and slow-moving trial. Jurors were presented with reams of contracts, financial spreadsheets and bank transfer statements, as well as expert witnesses who debated whether a particular phrase meant “pay him less” or “pay it less.”At one point, early in the trial, Judge Chen admonished the lead prosecutor, Kaitlin T. Farrell, for reading entire emails about corporate issues into the official record, warning that she risked losing the jury’s attention.And as in the first trial in the case, the government relied particularly heavily on a single star witness: Alejandro Burzaco, the former chief executive of the Argentine sports marketing and TV production firm Torneos, who pleaded guilty in the case in 2015 and has been cooperating with the U.S. government since.Over 11 days of testimony, he described in painstaking and sometimes stultifying detail the esoteric series of shell companies and phony contracts that had been used to pay bribes to soccer officials through a joint venture owned by Torneos and 21st Century Fox. Although he personally arranged the payments, Burzaco said he had informed both López and Martínez about their existence and said that neither executive had done anything to halt them.Burzaco also detailed using a relationship cultivated through bribes paid to Julio Grondona — a FIFA vice president and a longtime president of Argentina’s soccer association who died in 2014 — to gain inside information that helped Fox win the U.S. English-language rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. ESPN had long held that coveted property.Although bidding was supposed to have been blind, Burzaco said he had asked Grondona in late 2011 for help at López’s request. Burzaco testified that Grondona had “told me if Fox puts $400 million, they are going to award it to Fox — tell your friends.” Fox ultimately paid $425 million, and several years later obtained rights to the 2026 World Cup, to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.Over howls of protest from defense lawyers, prosecutors called the former ESPN president John Skipper to testify about the incident. “I was disappointed,” he said. “In fact, I was angry.”In a statement after the verdict, a Fox spokesman said, “This case does not involve Fox Corporation, and it was made clear that there was no connection to Fox’s successful World Cup bids.” The company has in the past noted that the unit where López and Martínez worked, Fox International Channels, was spun off in 2019 and that it was a different division, Fox Sports, that was charged with negotiating for those rights.Although both López and Martínez maintained their innocence, claiming they were never aware any bribes had been paid, Full Play took a decidedly different tack. Its lawyers readily admitted that the company had made regular payments to Latin American soccer officials but claimed that those payments had not been bribes but simply the standard way of doing business when it came to South American soccer.Ortiz, the lawyer for Full Play, said in his closing arguments late last week: “You can look at it and, say, hey, do I like this morally? Do I think this is appropriate?” But, he added, “all of these executives and officers acted in a manner and behaved and carried themselves in a manner that sent a clear, strong message that their receipts of payments were totally fine.” More

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      France’s Le Graët Steps Down but Lands on His Feet With FIFA

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      Noël Le Graët quit after an investigation found federation staff members had endured sexual and mental abuse, but he will stay in soccer: FIFA has hired him to run its Paris office.PARIS — Noël Le Graët, the embattled president of France’s soccer federation, stepped down on Tuesday, bringing an end to the long tenure of an executive whose grip on power — aided by powerful friendships — endured through on-field triumphs and off-field scandals.Battered by accusations of misconduct and mismanagement, Le Graët finally yielded to mounting calls for his removal at a special meeting of the board of the French federation, widely known by its three letter acronym, F.F.F. His announcement came two weeks after the completion of an audit into the organization revealed years of improper behavior even as France produced some of its best national teams, sending its men’s team to consecutive World Cup finals and hosting the Women’s World Cup on home soil in 2019.The audit had been commissioned by France’s sports minister amid growing reports of personal misconduct by Le Graët, including his sending inappropriate late-night text messages to female staff members. The sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, had publicly called for Le Graët’s resignation in January. On Tuesday, she hailed what she called “the right decision for the F.F.F. and for himself.”But even as he quit the federation under pressure, his place in soccer seemed secure: FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, appointed Le Graët last year to oversee its new office in Paris, and on Tuesday several of his federation colleagues offered him congratulations on that role.Misgivings about Le Graët’s continued presence in the presidency he had held since 2011 only increased as he created a string of controversies while the investigation was ongoing. Late last year, he infuriated French government officials before the World Cup by playing down the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar. After the tournament, he made derogatory statements about Zinedine Zidane, a World Cup winner considered to be one of the best players France has ever produced. Le Graët later took back his remarks and apologized to Zidane.Still, the 81-year-old Le Graët retained numerous allies despite the turmoil, including Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, who had reportedly lobbied on his behalf as his ouster neared. Infantino last year named Le Graët as his presidential delegate to oversee FIFA’s new office in Paris, an outpost that has taken on increasingly important roles that had once been the exclusive preserve of staff members at FIFA’s headquarters in Switzerland.Éric Borghini, a member of the French federation board present at Tuesday’s meeting, suggested Le Graët would continue in that role. It is unclear, though, if Le Graët will continue with his efforts to retain his seat on the soccer body’s governing board, the FIFA Council, in an election in April.Philippe Diallo, the vice president of the federation, will act as interim president of the F.F.F. until June 10, the date of its next general assembly.Far from excoriating Le Graët, his former colleagues rallied around the now ex-president. “Everywhere he has gone, the institutions and clubs he has led have been successful,” Diallo said.The official federation statement announcing his exit sought to celebrate French soccer’s successes under Le Graët, noting that under his direction France’s men’s and women’s teams had secured 11 titles and played in six international finals. The statement also pointed to infrastructure developments and the economic health of the federation.It did not make reference to the turmoil that has enveloped the federation since the men’s team’s success at the 2018 World Cup in France, including allegations of sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Some of those problems grew so toxic that several senior staff members complained about the workplace environment, a crisis that in 2020 forced Le Graët to call in an outside expert specializing in repairing damaged workplaces.Those efforts failed to yield results beyond preserving the positions of Le Graët and his second in command, Florence Hardouin. Hardouin is negotiating her departure from the federation after the government-sponsored investigation accused her of employing “brutal methods and erratic behavior.” Her legal team has since suggested she acted as a whistle-blower in the claims against Le Graët.The federation sought to protect itself in the aftermath of his resignation, claiming the investigation failed to reveal any systemic failure or any failure to fulfill its core mission. “The F.F.F. nevertheless notes that this report is based less on objective facts than on assessments which have sometimes led to a disproportionate denigration of the body,” it said.Current and former officials, meanwhile, continued to insist that removing Le Graët would not be enough to fix the federation’s problems.“The important point is not Le Graët and Hardouin,” said Pierre Samsonoff, the former head of the federation’s amateur soccer division. “What is important is the way the institution is ruled.” More

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      Saudi Sponsorship Catches Women’s World Cup Hosts by Surprise

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      Officials from Australia and New Zealand were blindsided by reports that FIFA would make Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority a partner for the tournament.MELBOURNE, Australia — Before their presence was first permitted by an easing of government restrictions in 2018, women in Saudi Arabia who slipped inside public stadiums to watch soccer games risked being arrested. So published news reports this week that the kingdom, via its Visit Saudi tourism brand, had reached a deal with world soccer’s governing body to become a prominent sponsor of this year’s Women’s World Cup were met on Wednesday with a sense of startled dismay.Players, fans and supporters of the tournament, the largest women’s sporting event ever held in Australia and New Zealand, scrambled to understand what to them appeared an uneasy corporate marriage between Saudi Arabia and FIFA, world soccer’s global governing body. And local World Cup organizers, blindsided by the news, were demanding an explanation.“We are very disappointed that Football Australia were not consulted on this matter prior to any decision being made,” a spokeswoman for Football Australia, the country’s governing body for soccer, said in a statement. Football Australia said its leaders, and those of its World Cup partner, New Zealand Football, “have jointly written to FIFA to urgently clarify the situation.”FIFA did not respond to messages seeking comment. A representative of the Saudi Tourism Authority did not immediately respond to a similar request.Others, particularly in Australia, saw little to clarify. They suggested a Visit Saudi sponsorship for a women’s championship was just the latest example of what critics have described as an effort by a government to use money to finance the kind of reputation-cleansing efforts derided as “sportswashing,” and of FIFA’s willingness to be an active partner.“Saudi Arabia sponsoring a global women’s sporting event is like Exxon sponsoring COP28 or McDonald’s a healthy eating or anti-obesity symposium,” said Craig Foster, a former captain of Australia’s men’s soccer team whose human rights advocacy has at times made him a vocal critic of FIFA. “It is perfectly in line with FIFA’s thirst for money at any cost and complete disregard for its human rights policy, let alone principles.”Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo during an exhibition match in Riyadh last month. Messi has a contract with Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority, and Ronaldo recently signed with a Saudi club.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen it came to FIFA, Foster added, “concepts like gender equality are only as durable as the amount of money received from abusing companies or countries, and inevitably, money wins.”Others, however, said Saudi sponsorships in sports like soccer, golf, boxing and wrestling, along with its investments in business, entertainment and the arts and an expansion of opportunities for women across society, represent a broader push by the Saudi government to diversify its oil-dependent economy and boost its importance on the world stage.“It’s part of a far larger strategy, across various sports, irrespective of gender, which is designed to, as Saudi Arabia wants to do with everything, make it the regional center of gravity,” said James M. Dorsey, a scholar at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.“Yes, it is about image, but it’s about positioning the kingdom as a powerhouse,” he added.In the last five years, Saudi Arabia has emerged as a key power player in soccer, cultivating a close relationship with the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, and investing billions in events, programs and partnerships (as well as in the acquisition of a Premier League soccer team). FIFA, meanwhile, has sought to increase investment in the women’s game, which despite its growth continues to receive a fraction of the financial support that underwrites the men’s game.At the same time, led by its powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has sought to burnish its reputation as the kind of country one might associate with major global sporting events, and where Lionel Messi might choose to vacation, rather than as a conservative monarchy that murders dissidents, according to United States intelligence, and imprisons citizens for their activity on social media.“There is an evident desire by the elite, very much driven by Mohammed bin Salman, to exact an enormous kind of cultural revolution in a really short time frame,” said David B. Roberts, a scholar of the region at King’s College London. “At the same time, you have qualitative changes that no one thought remotely plausible or possible, with the comparative or significant emancipation of women as independent economic actors in the kingdom.”Women were not allowed to attend soccer games in Saudi Arabia until 2018. But empowered by an easing of restrictions across public life, they attended World Cup matches in Qatar by the thousands.Luca Bruno/Associated PressWinning over women’s soccer players and fans, and Australians, may be more difficult. Sydney, which has had a surging demand for tickets to the World Cup, is home to some of the world’s largest L.G.B.T.Q. pride events, including a three-week Mardi Gras festival, and some of the tournament’s most prominent players, including Sam Kerr, the captain of Australia’s women’s team, and her girlfriend, the United States midfielder Kristie Mewis, are gay.L.G.B.T.Q. people in Saudi Arabia, as in many other parts of the Middle East, face discrimination and potentially arrest and prosecution.“If these reports are true, they are deeply perplexing,” said Moya Dodd, a former vice-captain of Australia’s team who was from 2013 to 2017 among the first women to appear in FIFA’s governing board. “If FIFA is planning to take money to tell L.G.B.T.Q.+ fans and players to ‘Visit Saudi,’ it’s hard to see how this could pass responsible business principles, let alone meet FIFA’s own human rights obligations and policies,” Dodd added. More

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      Copa América Will Return to U.S. in 2024

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      The relocation of the South American soccer championship is part of an agreement that also includes expanded events for clubs and women in the Americas.The Copa América, South America’s biggest soccer championship, will return to the United States in 2024 as part of a broad collaboration agreement between soccer officials in the Americas that also includes at least one new tournament as well as expanded intercontinental competitions for clubs and women’s national teams.Concacaf, the confederation that governs the sport in North and Central America and the Caribbean, and Conmebol, which rules the game in South America, announced their agreement on Friday.Among its obvious soccer and financial benefits — a previous Copa América in the United States was the largest and richest edition in the competition’s history — the agreement signaled a significant restoration of trust between officials from North and South America.Many soccer relationships in the region were seriously damaged in the years after 2015, when a corruption investigation led by the United States Department of Justice led to the arrests and convictions of dozens of soccer and marketing officials throughout the Americas. Television rights to the Copa América, the century-old South American championship, were central to some of those cases, and two former television executives charged with other crimes are currently on trial in New York.Despite all that, South American soccer nations have long looked to the United States, with its vast pool of expatriates but also its vast pool of capital, as a market they wanted to tap. But they wanted to do it on their terms.Now, South America will get access to both, while the United States, Mexico and Canada — the three co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup — will have the opportunity to play in a meaningful and competitive tournament two years before that global event. The success of the 2024 Copa América will go a long way toward determining if a longer term collaboration will become a fixture for soccer in the region.The Copa América was played in the United States in 2016, the only other time it was held outside South America and also the only time it included as many as 16 teams. Chile beat Lionel Messi and Argentina in the final, denying Messi a coveted trophy he has since claimed. (Messi also led Argentina to the World Cup title last year, but it is unclear if he will still be playing internationally in 2024.)In 2024, the 10 South American nations that would normally contest the Copa América will be joined by six teams from the Concacaf region.It is not uncommon for the Copa América to include “guest teams” from other regions. But for 2024, the teams from Concacaf will qualify through the 2023-24 Concacaf Nations League, rather than by invitation. A guest team has never won the Copa América, although Mexico made the final in 1993 and 2001. The United States has appeared in the tournament four times, making two semifinal appearances.The federations said the expanded Copa América would serve, in part, as a vital window of top-level preparation in the Western Hemisphere ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which is to be co-hosted in the United States, Mexico and Canada.The tournament will be held from mid-June to mid-July 2024, putting it in scheduling conflict with that summer’s European Championship, a tent-pole event on the soccer calendar that is held every four years, but keeping both tournaments well clear of the Paris Olympics that open in late July 2024.Argentina won the most recent Copa América in 2021, a career highlight for Lionel Messi, and his first major national team title. He and Argentina followed that with a World Cup win in 2022. In all, Argentina and Uruguay have won 15 Copa Américas each and Brazil nine.The federations also announced that the 2024 women’s Concacaf Gold Cup will include the top four South American teams alongside eight teams from Concacaf, a rare (and welcome) bit of heightened tournament competition for the region’s best teams outside the Women’s World Cup or the Olympics.A new men’s club competition for the region is also planned, to include two club teams from each confederation. The federations said they hoped to launch that tournament in 2024 as well. The tournament comes as the Club World Cup, for club teams around the world, is in flux, with FIFA planning to expand it but hold it less frequently.The club tournament is another sign of the deepening relationship between the regional bodies and the willingness of Conmebol to seek new territories for its teams. It already has a relationship with UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, that has seen the revival of an intercontinental championship matching the winner of the Copa América against the European champion. Argentina beat Italy, 3-0, in the game last year, the first time it had been held since 1993.The new four-team club tournament is likely to feature the finalists from the Concacaf Champions League and the finalists from the Copa Libertadores, the South American club championship, or the winner of that event and the champion of South America’s second-tier competition, the Copa Sudamericana.The new ventures come against the background of intense negotiations ahead of FIFA finalizing the global calendar for the next decade, a keenly anticipated plan that will shape the future of soccer across the world. More

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      Fox Sports Could Be Focus of FIFA Trial in Brooklyn

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      Two former executives are accused of paying bribes to obtain broadcast rights, including for the World Cup. Testimony could reveal what the company knew.The World Cup may be over, but the FIFA corruption scandal never seems to end.Nearly eight years after a series of predawn raids exposed corruption at the highest levels of international soccer, and more than five years after the conclusion of the first trial in the Justice Department’s sprawling probe of bribery in the sport, a second trial is set to begin on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn.Once more, the defendants stand accused of being involved in complex schemes to pay millions of dollars in exchange for the rights to matches. Once more, prosecutors are expected to focus on the same tournaments and to rely on many of the same witnesses. They will make their arguments before the same judge in the same courtroom and, they hope, they will add three more convictions to the long-running case’s already impressive ledger: to date, the government has netted 29 convictions in the case.But after years of focusing on soccer officials and sporting bureaucrats, the new trial has the potential for a dramatic twist: revelations about the involvement of one of FIFA’s most important media partners, Fox Corporation, in a secretive scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to enhance its position in international soccer — and to seize the sport’s biggest broadcasting prize, the rights to the World Cup itself, from a rival network.Fox itself is not on trial. But the fact that two of its former executives have been accused of orchestrating bribes, hiding payments and trafficking in insider information could damage the reputation of the $17 billion media giant. It could also breathe fresh relevance into a corruption investigation that once captured worldwide attention but which long ago faded from the news.Since the conclusion of the last trial, FIFA, soccer’s governing body, which is based in Zurich, has managed to stage two World Cups — in Russia in 2018 and Qatar last year — and bank record revenue, all while casting itself as the victim of its own corruption. It has been a successful strategy: Last summer, the Justice Department returned $92 million of the money it had recovered in the case to FIFA and its federations, part of a plan to award the soccer bodies more than $200 million in restitution overall.Gianni Infantino, the current FIFA president, has repeatedly made the claim that the organization he leads is now free of corruption. But the case, at least in the view of the Justice Department, is far from over.In the trial that begins this week, Hernán López, the former chief executive of Fox International Channels, and Carlos Martínez, who served as president of the subsidiary’s Latin American operations, face wire fraud and money laundering charges. Prosecutors have accused them of running a scheme to pay bribes to “advance the interests of Fox” and help the company secure television broadcast rights to both the popular Copa Libertadores, the South American club championship, and the World Cup. If found guilty, López and Martínez face up to 20 years in prison.A third defendant in the trial, the Argentine sports marketing firm Full Play Group SA, faces a laundry list of charges for what prosecutors described as years of bribe-paying to win rights to tournaments. If convicted, it could join a short and ignominious list of corporations found guilty of felonies in the United States, among them banks, energy companies and the Trump Organization.Lawyers for all three defendants declined to discuss the case, as did a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. But new convictions in federal court could help prosecutors justify the millions of dollars spent on an investigation that began in secret more than a dozen years ago and long ago more than proved its point: that global soccer has a profound corruption problem and — critically — that almost nothing is outside the reach of American justice.FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, has claimed his organization is free of corruption, but a trial in the United States could bring new revelations.Martin Meissner/Associated PressThe trial in Brooklyn, which is expected to last four to six weeks, largely concerns activities in South America. According to the March 2020 indictment, López, who holds American and Argentine citizenship, and Martínez, a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, helped pay and conceal “annual bribe and kickback payments” to at least 14 soccer officials to secure television rights to two lucrative annual club championships, the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana.Prosecutors also contend that López and Martínez used relationships forged through bribes to obtain “confidential information” from a top FIFA executive from Argentina that helped the company secure the American broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Rights to the event had been held by ESPN since the 1994 edition of the tournament, but in 2011, Fox announced it had snatched them away. Four years later, FIFA announced it had also awarded Fox rights to the incredibly lucrative 2026 World Cup, to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, without so much as giving ESPN a chance to bid.The allegations involving Fox appear to match 2017 trial testimony given by Alejandro Burzaco, the former chief executive of the Argentine sports marketing firm Torneos, who pleaded guilty in the case and has been cooperating with the government.As the prosecution’s star witness, he claimed López and Martínez helped cover up $3.7 million in bribes by using a phony contract with a firm partially owned by Fox.Fox has denied any knowledge of any bribes, saying at the time that “any suggestion that Fox Sports knew of or approved of any bribes is emphatically false.” López and Martínez have emphatically denied the charges against them in court filings, claiming that any bribes would have been paid by Burzaco.López left Fox in January 2016, seven months after the first indictment in the FIFA case, and subsequently founded the podcasting company Wondery, which he sold to Amazon for a reported $300 million nine months after he was indicted in the soccer case.Both his fate, and that of Martínez, may depend heavily on new testimony from Burzaco, who is once again expected to be the government’s chief witness — and, potentially, the source of any major revelations. 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