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      Argentina’s World Cup Champions Gather for First Time Since Qatar

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      Lionel Messi and his Argentina teammates have reunited for the first time. Most are finding a day job feels different after you’ve won the World Cup.When Alexis Mac Allister returned to his day job, he was greeted by a standing ovation, an Argentine flag and a set of strategically placed cannons that showered him with blue, white and gold glitter. His Premier League team, Brighton, had even gone to the trouble of commissioning a scale-model replica of the World Cup trophy for him to lift.Few of Mac Allister’s teammates on the Argentina squad that became world champions three months ago experienced such a lavish welcome when they returned to their clubs, but most were treated to some sort of celebration, a heartfelt recognition of their achievement.Defender Lisandro Martínez was applauded onto the field at Manchester United. The reserve goalkeeper Franco Armani has received at least one commemorative jersey from his opponents. The midfielder Exequiel Palacios spent a portion of his first day back at Bayer Leverkusen signing autographs for his co-workers.Marcos Acuña, Alejandro Gómez and Gonzalo Montiel — the scorer of the penalty that brought his nation its third World Cup — were invited to take part in a ceremonial kickoff before their first home game for their club, Sevilla. Acuña and Montiel appeared with their gold medals around their necks. Gómez, wearing a black trench coat, clasped his in his fist.Sevilla honored three of its Argentina players, but not all were ready to play right away.Antonio Pozo/Pressinphoto, via Icon SportAlexis Mac Allister’s welcome home at Brighton included flags, confetti and a replica trophy.Andrew Couldridge/Action Images, via ReutersAt Manchester United, even Lisandro Martínez’s star teammates were impressed.Carl Recine/ReutersOthers opted for a more low-key approach. Lionel Messi was granted a guard of honor at his first training session with Paris St.-Germain; the club, probably sensibly, had presumably decided that the French public would not be in the mood to toast Argentina’s success at its expense.Thiago Almada, who at 21 is the youngest official member of Argentina’s squad, found something similar waiting for him at Atlanta United. “We gave him a túnel, and I addressed him in front of the team,” said Gonzalo Pineda, Atlanta’s head coach. “It’s a massive achievement for him, of course, but we want to keep him grounded, too.”How to do that is the dilemma facing not only the 19 clubs that were represented on the victorious Argentina squad, but the 26 players themselves. (That figure rises to 27 if Federico Gomes Gerth, a goalkeeper with the Argentine club Tigre who was brought to Qatar to help in training, is included; the 19-year-old was sent his own medal last week.)Winning the World Cup, after all, will likely be the pinnacle of each of their careers, an achievement that the midfielder Rodrigo De Paul has described as “the key to eternity.” They are conscious that it is a triumph that they may well be unable to match, and which they certainly will not be allowed to forget: Emiliano Martínez, the goalkeeper, has noted that “people keep telling me that I have achieved the maximum in soccer.”Argentina’s mood, naturally, remains celebratory. On Thursday, the team will take the field for the first time since its World Cup win in Qatar, wearing jerseys proudly embroidered with three stars. At the end of the team’s friendly against Panama in Buenos Aires, Messi will present the World Cup trophy to the crowd. It is such an enticing prospect that some 1.8 million people — four percent of the country’s population — applied for tickets. They sold out in two hours. “There is a madness that is still being lived, and will be lived for a long time,” De Paul said.For the players, that intense interest has presented a considerable challenge. All World Cup winners have to descend to Earth at some point, of course, but most do not have to do it quite so quickly.Exequiel Palacios’s coach at Bayer Leverkusen, the World Cup winner Xabi Alonso, said the 24-year-old has shown more confidence since returning to the club a world champion.Ina Fassbender/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe scheduling of Qatar 2022, in the middle of the European season, meant that a majority of the players on Lionel Scaloni’s squad were summoned back to the relative mundanity of club soccer within a couple of weeks.They had been marked, figuratively and literally, by what they had achieved — Ángel Di María and Emiliano Martínez both now have the World Cup trophy tattooed on their legs; Montiel has three stars on his neck — but now they found themselves commanded, almost instantly, to turn the page on the most glorious chapter of their careers.“It is the most difficult stage after you have achieved something so big,” Palacios told Infobae in January. “You have to change your focus quickly and continue training.”In most cases, the players seem to have made that transition relatively smoothly. Those who work with them say the gold medals have been a source of inspiration rather than a token of satisfaction. “He’s got a spring in his step,” Evan Ferguson, Mac Allister’s teammate at Brighton, said of the 24-year-old midfielder. “But he’s still grounded. He’s still giving his all in training. He doesn’t think he’s better than us now.”That does not mean, though, that waking up every morning as a World Cup winner does not have an impact. Xabi Alonso, a world champion with Spain in 2010 and now Palacios’s coach at Leverkusen, has noticed that the 24-year-old has a little bit more “confidence about what he has achieved” in his career since he returned from Qatar. “Being part of that historic win, the way the team played and the fact he was part of it has helped him enormously,” Alonso said.Pineda, meanwhile, has found that Almada — still just 21, and entering his sophomore year in Major League Soccer — is “a little more vocal” in team meetings and on the field than he was before the World Cup. “He’s still the same professional kid, mature for his age, but if you share a locker room with Messi before a World Cup final, you’re going to learn a little bit about what to say and when to say it,” Pineda said.Thiago Almada was the youngest member of Argentina’s World Cup team.Jennifer Lorenzini/ReutersNow he might be the best young player in Major League Soccer.Alex Slitz/Associated PressAtlanta has not seen any signs that Almada is prepared to rest on his laurels, though the relatively muted celebration that greeted his return indicates that the club was aware of the risk. “His objective has always been to be a major player on a team in Europe,” Pineda said. “He wants to succeed there, to be a starter for the national team, to be on the top level. He is young and he is super-talented, but he still has a couple more things to prove.”Winning the World Cup before his 22nd birthday, as far as the club is concerned, has not changed any of that. At the start of this season, Atlanta provided each member of its squad with an individual development plan, a way of tracking every player’s growth, reminding them both of where they are and where they want to be.Almada’s has not been updated to reflect the fact that he has lifted the World Cup, completed his ultimate dream, obtained his key to eternity. He, like his teammates on that Argentina squad, might never be able to match what they achieved in Qatar. But that does not mean that they should not try.Tariq Panja contributed reporting from Brighton, England. More

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      Ali Krieger Is Calling It a Career. She Wants Wins on Her Way Out.

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      Krieger, 38, will retire after one final season with Gotham F.C. in the N.W.S.L. She is confident it will go better than the last one.Since it began almost two decades ago, Ali Krieger’s soccer career has taken her more places than she can remember: dozens of countries, three World Cups and at least two operating rooms.But this year her career will come to an end, but not before a final challenge that will be a far cry from the glory of lifting league and World Cup trophies. Before she calls it quits, Krieger, 38, wants to turn around her club team, Gotham F.C. of the National Women’s Soccer League, after a season she would prefer to forget.“It was terrible,” Krieger said of last season, her first with the club. “I don’t think I’d ever been on a team in last place.”Last season’s champion, the Portland Thorns, and the regular-season winner, OL Reign, are the more likely candidates for success in the new N.W.S.L. season, which opens this weekend. But Krieger, a defender, said she was determined to help turn around Gotham after a year in which the team started 4-8, fired its coach and then didn’t win again. Ten games. Nine losses. No fun.“We were so unhappy because we didn’t understand our roles and responsibilities,” Krieger said. “No one really knew what we were supposed to be doing out on the field.”Krieger said her penultimate N.W.S.L. season was “terrible.” Her final one starts this weekend.Ashley Landis/Associated PressIn an interview last week, she said that she was optimistic that this year would be better and that a revival could be accomplished under the team’s new Spanish coach, Juan Carlos Amorós.“I don’t say this lightly,” Krieger said. “I have played for some of the best coaches in the world. He is the ultimate package. I’ve never seen so many players this happy, whether they are playing every minute or not.“Everyone has an understanding of the ‘why.’ Why you do every little thing in training or in your specific position on the field.”Gotham scored a league-low 16 goals in its 22 games last season, and no individual player had more than three — not a recipe for success. To address that glaring weakness, the team added Lynn Williams, who has scored 15 times for the women’s national team, up front. But Krieger said scoring responsibility does not rest solely on the strikers, and the team also added defender Kelley O’Hara and midfielder Allie Long, two more players with deep national team experience. They, and Krieger, should give the team a little more organization and a little more connection up the field.That said, Krieger admitted, “Adding Lynn Williams to any squad, you are 100 percent better.”No matter how her final season turns out, Krieger said she was confident the N.W.S.L., which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, was on the right path after a season marred by a sprawling abuse scandal that affected multiple clubs.“It’s definitely better,” she said. “Now we have sponsorships and ownerships and club officials who actually care. We’re not considered a charity anymore. This is a business.”While acknowledging the pinnacle of her career had been being a part of World Cup-winning teams in 2015 and 2019, Krieger said, “I’m a club over country girl.” One of her most memorable moments, she said, came in her first season in Europe, winning the Champions League and the treble with a German team then known as F.F.C. Frankfurt.“I didn’t realize that it was that important at the time,” Krieger said of her early club successes. “I had never really watched a lot of European women’s teams play. I could not just pop online and watch the Bundesliga.”There is plenty from the European model, she said, that could be valuable for the N.W.S.L., including an emphasis on developing the next generation of talent.Krieger during her Bundesliga years, when she helped Frankfurt win the league, cup and Champions League treble.Joern Pollex/Bongarts/Getty Images“I played with 15- and 16-year-olds,” she said. “I can remember Svenja Huth” — now a mainstay of the German national team — “she was 16 playing in her first Champions League game in front of me.“That model is something we could hopefully get to in the future. I don’t know if we have the infrastructure at every single club to do that just yet, but we’re getting there.”The on-field style of European play is different as well, she said. American teams often rely on an advantage of athleticism, and pace and pressure, rather than on a technical approach.“In Europe, players are very technical and skillful,” Krieger said. “They tend to play smarter, not harder. We’re trying to bring that kind of mentality here. Just kicking it long and running, high-pressing constantly, is not always going to be the best style.“Our younger players have the technical ability and the skill set to really do both. It’s exciting to see the future coming and mixing the two styles.”For Krieger, retirement will mean more time with her growing family — she married her former national teammate Ashlyn Harris in 2019, and the couple have two children, ages 2 and 8 months — and possibly a place on the board of trustees for her alma mater, Penn State.Krieger and Ashlyn Harris with their daughter, Sloane, last season. They also have a son. Ira L. Black/Corbis, via Getty ImagesBut that will come after one last season. After that, she said, she will be happy to leave the next steps — and the battles for more wins, safer workplaces and equal pay — to players coming up behind her.“We had to fight tooth and nail,” she said of the struggles of players of her era and earlier ones. “To even have a voice, we had to win. That sparked a different mentality in our generation. We were a bunch of psychos out there. I don’t know if I’ve seen that type of urgency yet from the younger players because they were brought up in a different time.“It’s not better or worse. But that mentality piece is the next step to create the winning way that we have paved for them. In order for them to continue to win, that mentality, that urgency, determination and grit will have to be instilled. Daily.” More

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      Quinten and Jurrien Timber Share Title Dreams and a Bedroom

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      Quinten and Jurrien Timber are on opposite sides of the Dutch championship race. At home, they may be closer, literally, than any two players in European soccer.Perhaps the following exchange provides the best example of the precise dynamic of the Timber household. One brother, Quinten, is reflecting on the various virtues that have helped his Feyenoord side soar, just a touch unexpectedly, to the top of the Eredivisie — Dutch soccer’s top division — this season.“Maybe we do not have the best individuals,” he says. “But we are a good team. We fight to the end.” He pauses for breath. Sitting next to him, his twin brother, Jurrien, takes the break as an invitation to interject.“You’ve been a bit lucky sometimes, too,” he tells his brother. His voice trails off as he does so, making it sound as if no team has ever been more fortunate than Feyenoord this season.Graciously, Quinten concedes the point. Yes, he says, but then, that’s sports. Any successful team needs the ball to bounce its way at times. He says it with the sort of tone that suggests he has clocked his brother’s attempts to be provocative, and that he does not intend to rise to them.The Timbers met when their teams played a 1-1 draw in January. Sunday’s rematch will help decide the Dutch championship.Sipa, via Associated Press“It changed after the World Cup,” Quinten says, picking up his train of thought. Suddenly, Feyenoord and its fans realized a first Dutch title since 2017 might be feasible. “The pressure was very high after that,” he says. “But we have stayed first since then.”“Yeah,” Jurrien says, turning back to take another swing, “but you want to be No. 1 in May. Let’s see how long they can handle the pressure.”This sparring works both ways: A little while later, Quinten will need no second invitation to remind Jurrien that Feyenoord is still in contention for three trophies, and that Jurrien’s team, Ajax, is, well, not. It contains not a hint of malice. This is just how it has to be, when you share not just a house but a bedroom with someone who plays for your fiercest rival, and your direct opponent in a title race.For most of their lives, Jurrien and Quinten Timber were on the same team. They played together for their school and for their local grass-roots team. At age 7, they joined Feyenoord together, and then early in their teens both made the leap to Ajax. The only exception was in pickup games. “Then we had to be apart,” Jurrien said. “Otherwise it wasn’t fair.”Quinten and Jurrien began their careers as teammates at Ajax.Sipa, via Associated PressNow, though, they are 21, and they find themselves on either side of Dutch soccer’s most intractable divide. An energetic, inventive midfielder, Quinten left Ajax a couple of years ago, determining that a move to Utrecht, his hometown club, would offer a quicker route to elite soccer. He did enough in a season there to win an immediate move to Feyenoord.“It was one step back to take two forward,” he said. “I had to make that choice to play more at the highest level. It was a good choice.”Jurrien supported him in that decision, even as he remained at Ajax. He is now in his fourth season as an intelligent, assured mainstay of the club’s defense. He has already picked up a number of Dutch titles. (“Is it two?” asked Quinten. “Three,” Jurrien countered. “But the first one was the season canceled by coronavirus.”)That, of course, would be schism enough for any family: The rivalry between Ajax and Feyenoord is as deep-rooted as any in Europe. “I don’t want to use the word hate,” said Quinten. No alternative, though, leaps immediately to mind. “Yeah, Feyenoord fans really hate Ajax.”Rivals and roommates, but not for long: Both say they plan to move out of their family home this summer.Melissa Schriek for The New York TimesThis season, though, the enmity has become more immediate. Last summer, Ajax lost not only its coach, Erik Ten Hag, but a swath of players: the defender Lisandro Martínez and the winger Antony both joined their mentor at Manchester United; Ryan Gravenberch and Noussair Mazraoui left for Bayern Munich; Perr Schuurs, Nicolás Tagliafico and Sébastien Haller all departed, too.Early in the season, the club — Dutch champions in three of the past four seasons — searched for its usual form. “We lost a lot of stupid points,” Jurrien said. “We were not playing at our level. It was the first time that had happened to me, the first bad patch I’d known. A lot of things had changed, and it takes time. It is difficult when you lose that many players. But now we are getting back.”(“Yes,” says Quinten, with just a hint of joyful condescendence. “Maybe now you are ready to compete.”)For Feyenoord, Ajax’s struggles represented an opportunity. The club won 10 of its first 14 games to move to the top of the Eredivisie before the World Cup. It has not lost since league play resumed after the tournament, even if a run of four draws in six games in January and February slowed its momentum a little. Still, though, it has a three-point lead over Ajax as the two clubs prepare to meet in Amsterdam on Sunday.The brothers’ only chance to play on the same side these days is with the Netherlands.Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates, via Getty ImagesThat should, of course, have the potential to be intensely awkward for the Timber family. The brothers said they were confident that there was no risk of split loyalties for their mother and their three older brothers, at least, given that Quinten has been ruled out of the game with a knee injury. “Normally our Mum supports the underdog,” Jurrien said. “But because Quin’s injured, I think she’ll be for Ajax.”In the bedroom they have shared since childhood, there is no sign of tension. Both plan to move out in the coming months but even in the thick of a title race, both seem ambivalent about the prospect. “We’ve lived together our whole lives,” Quinten said. “It will be weird.”He probably ranks as a little more enthused at independence than his brother, which may or may not be related to the fact that, when asked which of the two was messier, Jurrien looked immediately sheepish and Quinten looked immediately at Jurrien.They have not felt the need to institute a rule banning soccer talk when they get home; the only taboo is that they will not divulge potentially sensitive information to each other. “Giving details would be dangerous,” Jurrien said. “But it’s interesting how it goes at the different clubs, how they think, how we think.”“Normally our Mum supports the underdog,” Jurrien said of Sunday. “But because Quin’s injured, I think she’ll be for Ajax.”Melissa Schriek for The New York Times“They asked me today whether Ajax was confident,” Quinten said. “I told them that Ajax is always confident. Even if they are playing badly and not winning games, they are confident. That’s always how it is at Ajax.”The Timbers are, though, making provisions for what happens after the game. Before the season, and after Quinten had completed his move to Feyenoord, they agreed on a silver lining: At least this way one of them would be champion. “We said it would be me or him,” Jurrien said. “Not PSV Eindhoven or AZ Alkmaar or anyone like that.”That brotherly affection only extends so far, though.“You don’t want to hear after the game that they won,” said Quinten. “Well, a little bit, maybe. That’s the fun part. You can talk about the game, how it went. But not too much.”Jurrien is not so sure. Asked what he might do if Feyenoord were to win in Amsterdam, and take another giant step toward the championship at his and Ajax’s expense, he said, “I think I might go and sleep at my girlfriend’s.”More, More, MoreGianni Infantino, probably after seeing the accounting projections for a 2026 World Cup.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere could not, really, be a more perfect encapsulation of the problem with FIFA than the one that played out in Rwanda this week. No, not the part in which Gianni Infantino was elected for another term as president by acclamation, as though he were some sort of Roman emperor, but the part in which the organization’s congress casually decided to add 104 games to the 2026 World Cup.In one sense, of course, this is the correct decision. FIFA had long been toying with the idea of dividing the field in the first-ever 48-team World Cup into 16 groups of three, with 32 nations progressing to an extended knockout round. It was an unwieldy, inelegant sort of a plan, one that seemed to guarantee an awful lot of pointless soccer early in the tournament.The drama of the group stage in Qatar — remember the part in which Poland needed to avoid yellow cards in order to qualify? — persuaded FIFA to change course. Groups of four, it noticed, worked quite nicely. And so, this week, it resolved that 2026 would follow the same format: The tournament will start with 12 groups of four.It is a typical FIFA solution, a technocrat’s fix, one that betrays quite how little it understands the appeal of its own competition. Four-team groups are not inherently better than three-team pools; what made the group stage in Qatar (and in every World Cup since 1998) dramatic is that it served to halve the field.That will still not be the case in 2026: The top two teams in each of the 12 groups will progress, and so will eight teams who finish in third place. The stakes, in many of the games, will be infinitely lower. There will be more second chances. There will still be an awful lot of largely pointless soccer.That, ultimately, is the price FIFA has to pay for expanding its money-spinning, showpiece occasion. There is, after all, a balance in all things. FIFA can have more teams in the World Cup finals. It may well be richer for it, both metaphorically and literally. But it comes at a cost, somewhere along the line. Changing the scale of the tournament alters the nature of it. And there is no way to square that particular circle, no technical solution to an emotional problem.Might Makes RightRB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg met in the Europa League in 2018. The company won either way.Andreas Schaad/EPA, via ShutterstockIt has not been all that long since European soccer’s ultimate power broker, UEFA, published a report that identified the rising trend of multiclub ownership as a clear and present threat to the game. Indeed, the model is now so popular, and so prominent, that it has generated a neologism: Executives now happily talk about pursuing “multiclub” setups as part of their strategy.The downside to one group of investors owning multiple teams, though, is twofold. Most obvious is that it might damage the integrity of a competition that brings any two teams from the same stable into direct competition.Much more serious — though a little less tangible, and therefore more easily ignored — is that it raises uncomfortable questions about what the point of some of those teams might be. Do the lesser sides in a network exist to compete for trophies, as they really should, or are they reduced to acting as warehouses for storing what investors might refer to as assets but have, habitually, been calling “players?”For years, the primary bulwark against the popularization of that approach has been a single rule in UEFA’s statutes, one that outright forbids the same group having “control or influence” over two teams in the same European competition.It has been teetering for years — in 2018, UEFA found a workaround to allow RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg not only to compete in the same tournament but to play one another in it — but now, as more and more investors gobble up more and more teams, its very existence seems to hang in the balance.“We have to speak about this regulation,” UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, said in an interview with The Overlap this week. “There is more and more interest in this particular ownership. We shouldn’t just say no to multiclub ownership, but we have to see what rules we set because the rules have to be strict.”He is right, to some extent: Multiclub ownership should not be dismissed out of hand as an emerging evil. In some circumstances, at least, it is possible to make a case for its benefits. It should be the subject of a mature and intelligent discussion, rather than a reflex rejection.At the same time, though, it is very hard to avoid the suspicion that UEFA’s about-face on the subject illustrates how powerless the organization is to protect and nurture the game in the face of an unrelenting tide of money. It rather gives the impression that UEFA will bend the rules to incorporate anything that the rich and the powerful want. It makes it abundantly clear, in fact, who is in charge, and it is not the people who exist to look after the best interests of the game. 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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      Portrait of an Artist, Still Just a Young Man

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      Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has become a star in nine months at Napoli. With his transcendent talent, things may only get better.NAPLES, Italy — European soccer’s breakout star looks briefly uneasy. It is not the setting. That is just about perfect: He is leaning on a wrought-iron railing on the terrace of the Grand Hotel Parker’s, all cut-glass, belle epoque elegance, the city of Naples spilling out to the sea beneath him. At his back lurks Mount Vesuvius, wreathed in clouds.No, it is the pose that has perplexed Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. He cannot decide what to do with his arms. If he pulls them too close, he looks stiff, tense. If he allows them to slide too far away, he is drawn into a slouch. He cannot find a compromise that makes him happy. For a moment, he is flummoxed. And in that moment, he is just a little outside his comfort zone.In a way, that is quite reassuring. For the better part of the last nine months, after all, it has not been immediately clear that there exists anything at all that can throw Kvaratskhelia off balance. Everything has gone so blissfully, so impossibly smoothly for him that even he has been taken aback at times.“Ever since I arrived,” he said, “it has felt like being in a dream.”Often, it has felt like watching one, too. Trajectories like Kvaratskhelia’s do not happen anymore. There are no overnight sensations in modern soccer. The game’s next big things, its greats-in-waiting, are picked up and pored over before they are in their teens.They have agents at 10, shoe deals at 12 and millions of YouTube views before they hit 14. They are summoned by the sport’s great clubs long before they turn 16, legends paraded in front of them by teams squabbling desperately over their affection and signature. The sort of talent that can illuminate one of Europe’s major leagues is identified and cultivated while it is still germinating.It is not — repeat: not — found showing quiet promise at age 21 while playing for Rubin Kazan, a middling Russian team in what traditionally ranks as one of Europe’s second-tier competitions. Those are not circumstances in which it is possible to procure a player who will immediately turn out to be among the most devastating attacking forces in the world.Except that is precisely what happened.Kvaratskhelia’s first season at Napoli could end with the club’s first Italian title in more than three decades. Jennifer Lorenzini/ReutersKvaratskhelia arrived at Napoli for a little more than $10 million last summer (from Dinamo Batumi, in his homeland, Georgia, after having canceled his contract in Kazan). The Italian side had, by all accounts, been tracking him for two years.Within a couple of months, his new club’s fans had taken to calling him either Kvaradona or, more erudite, Kvaravaggio. One company in Georgia began arranging charter flights to Naples to coincide with Napoli’s home games, ensuring that every time he takes the field at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, one small corner of the stadium is marked by Georgian flags and contains a couple hundred countrymen there specifically to see him.By Christmas, his agent was having to dampen talk on a reasonably regular basis that Manchester City was busy riffling through its bottomless wallet to find the $100 million or so that might persuade Napoli to cash in on its budding phenom.None of it appears to have fazed him in the slightest. “The start was so smooth that it did feel like a dream,” he said. “But at some point, early on, I had to collect myself, remind myself that it was not a dream, that it was reality, and I had to find the strength in myself to live through it.”Nine months later, Kvaratskhelia still does not possess the glossy veneer of the ascendant superstar. His hair is tousled: not artfully or deliberately, but absent-mindedly. His beard is thick but patchy enough that another nickname, Che Kvara, has caught on, too. He looks like a tortured love poet or an eager politics student.He speaks perfectly passable English — good enough to expound, in reasonable detail, on the health-giving qualities of Georgian wine — but preferred his first major interview since moving to Italy to run through an interpreter back in Tbilisi. A friend of his girlfriend’s mother works in the country’s parliament, he explained. “She normally works with important people,” he said, without a hint of irony.Napoli’s coach sold Kvaratskhelia not with an offer of freedom, but a demand to fit in with his team.Roberto Salomone for The New York TimesIt is typical of how lightly he has worn his new status, of how easily he has carried the weight of expectation that has rapidly coalesced around him. “I tend to default to gratitude,” he said. “I am grateful for every piece of love and affection people show me. I know it is praise, but it is also motivation and inspiration. It is a huge responsibility. I have to prove every game that I can do as I have promised.”At no point has it looked as if that might be a problem. In 21 games in his debut season in Serie A, Kvaratskhelia has scored 10 goals and created 11 more. The last of them came on Saturday, a storybook goal that involved slaloming between three defenders and then cannoning a fierce, rising shot past three more, as well as the goalkeeper.It set his team on a course to a victory that extended its lead over second-place Inter Milan at the top of Serie A to 18 points. Napoli is on its way to its first Italian title in 33 years, and common consensus has identified Kvaratskhelia as the reason.The Champions League has proved no more daunting. His first contribution in that competition was to instill an identity crisis — as yet unresolved — in Trent Alexander-Arnold, the Liverpool and England right back. His most recent was a moderately unrealistic back-heeled assist in Napoli’s win against Eintracht Frankfurt in the first leg of its last 16 tie.That virtuosic streak — the sense that his greatest asset is an untamed imagination — has become Kvaratskhelia’s calling card. “That freedom is my signature,” he said. “It is something I recognize in myself. It is because I love what I do. When I am playing, it kind of carries me away.”A Georgian company arranges flights for every Napoli home game so fans can watch their favorite son. Ciro De Luca/ReutersIt is not, though, what he would attribute as the root of his sudden success. Before he joined Napoli, he had a long phone call with Luciano Spalletti, the club’s wily, experienced coach. Spalletti, as is normal in these situations, was simultaneously trying to sell him on the club and warn him as to the nature of his duties.“It was a good talk,” Kvaratskhelia said. The coach did not promise him carte blanche to express himself. “He told me what I would be expected to do for the team. We talked a lot about focusing on defensive work, about being part of team play and the importance of team spirit. That is what is really important to him: the spirit.”That is not necessarily, of course, what a player of Kvaratskhelia’s gifts — spontaneous, off-the-cuff, proudly improvisational — might be expected to want to hear, that he was being introduced not as a soloist but as part of an ensemble. And yet it made perfect sense to him. Partly, he recognized that Spalletti’s approach might round out his skill set. “Italian coaches are famous,” he said. “They know how to make players perform.”Mainly, though, it fit with the way he saw his talent. “You play with your heart, with passion, but you also play with your conscious brain,” he said. “It is more a conscious thing than anything else, based on what you have learned in training, on the mistakes you have made previously, on the options that are there.”What looks like the work of impromptu genius is, to Kvaratskhelia, actually nothing more than a constructed pattern of lived experience. “The way I play is both heart and conscious thought,” he said, chewing it over a little more. “But if you don’t use your brain, you would never improve.”“Freedom is my signature,” he said. “It is something I recognize in myself. It is because I love what I do.”Ciro Fusco/EPA, via ShutterstockHe knows that is his next challenge.He has, he acknowledged, detected that teams — particularly in Italy — have started to defend him a little differently. He may not act like a star, and he may not feel like a star, but he is starting to be treated like one. “I feel like my factor has been built in to the way teams set up against us,” he said.He is not troubled by that. If anything, he sees it as a compliment. Nine months since his arrival, every team that faces Napoli knows that if it is to stand any chance at all, it has to succeed where so many others have failed. It has to find a way of taking Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the overnight sensation with Naples, the star with Italy and Europe in the palm of his hands, out of his comfort zone. More

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      Investigators Clear Former U.S. Soccer Coach in 1992 Incident

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      An inquiry found no reason U.S. Soccer could not rehire Gregg Berhalter as coach of the men’s national team. But investigators criticized the parents of a player for their part in the controversy.Gregg Berhalter, the men’s national soccer team coach at last year’s World Cup, is eligible to return for the next World Cup cycle after investigators looking into his personal conduct cleared him to remain a candidate for the job, the U.S. Soccer Federation said on Monday.“There is no basis to conclude that employing Mr. Berhalter would create legal risks for an organization,” investigators said in a report made public on Monday.The federation three months ago hired investigators at the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird to look into an incident involving Berhalter kicking his wife, Rosalind, in front of a bar when they were dating as students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1992. No police report was filed for that incident.The investigators said they were “impressed with Mr. Berhalter’s candor and demeanor” during the inquiry and found no discrepancies between Gregg and Rosalind Berhalter’s description of the incident, with Gregg Berhalter saying he reported it to his college coach and also sought counseling for the way he acted. The two had been drunk when they left the bar arguing, and Rosalind hit Gregg in the face. Gregg then pushed her down and kicked her twice in the upper leg, the report said.Both Berhalters, in a statement made public in January, acknowledged what happened and said they have been happily married for 25 years.The report also said, based on interviews and research, that there was no reason to believe that Berhalter — whose contract with U.S. Soccer expired at the end of 2022 — ever acted aggressively toward his wife in the past 31 years.“The investigation revealed no evidence to suggest that he had engaged in violence against another person at any time prior or thereafter,” the report said, calling the 1992 incident “an isolated event.”In a statement Monday, Gregg Berhalter said: “Rosalind and I respect the process that U.S. Soccer went through. We are grateful that it is concluded and look forward to what’s next.”The report concludes a bizarre turn of events surrounding the World Cup involving Claudio and Danielle Reyna, the parents of U.S. forward Gio Reyna. The Reynas complained to U.S. Soccer about Gio’s playing time in the tournament and suggested “they knew damaging information about Mr. Berhalter that U.S. Soccer officials did not know.”The Berhalters and Reynas had been close friends for decades, and Rosalind and Danielle had been college soccer teammates. But the Reynas became upset after hearing Berhalter’s public comments about an unnamed player at the World Cup who “was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field” and who the staff considered sending home. The player was Gio Reyna, and the Reynas vented to U.S. Soccer about what Berhalter had said, with Danielle Reyna telling the federation about the 1992 incident.Berhalter coaching Gio Reyna during a match against the Netherlands in December.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Reynas told U.S. Soccer about the incident, the report said, because they didn’t want the federation to renew Berhalter’s contract. “The information was disclosed at a time when it would be expected to discourage or otherwise influence the organization from offering a contract extension to Mr. Berhalter,” the report said.The report said Danielle Reyna first denied to investigators that she told the U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart about the kicking incident, but then called back to say she indeed had. Compared to how open and willing the Berhalters had been in the inquiry, the report said, the Reynas were much less cooperative.The Reynas could not immediately be reached for comment.The investigative report details some of the Reynas’ complaints to U.S. Soccer over the years, specifically calling out Claudio Reyna’s yearslong outreach to the federation on behalf of his children, especially Gio.Claudio Reyna expressed his dissatisfaction with refereeing at the youth club level of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, travel arrangements at the U-17 World Cup (he wanted business class) and Gio’s playing time on the national team, according to the report. One person interviewed by investigators referred to Reyna’s interactions with U.S. Soccer about his sons as “inappropriate,” “bullying” and “mean spirited.” Another, whose name was also redacted, said, “Mr. Reyna expected Gio Reyna to be treated better than other players.”The report also said that the communications between the Reynas and U.S. Soccer didn’t violate any federation laws or policy, but it did not say whether the Reynas violated FIFA’s code of ethics.In a statement, U.S. Soccer noted that the report said that there is “a need to revisit U.S. Soccer’s policies concerning appropriate parental conduct and communications with the staff at the National Team level.”The federation went on to say: “We will be updating those policies as we continue to work to ensure safe environments for all participants in our game.”Whether Berhalter will be in charge of the men’s national team when those policies are put in place is still unknown.Stewart, the sporting director, resigned in January amid the Reyna-Berhalter situation and took a job with a Dutch club team, and U.S. Soccer is looking for his replacement. The new sporting director will likely will be in charge of hiring the new men’s national team coach. More

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      Gary Lineker to Return to BBC Soccer Show ‘Match of the Day’

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      The move calms a crisis at the publicly funded broadcaster after Gary Lineker, a former soccer star, was removed from a flagship show because of a tweet about immigration policy.The BBC announced on Monday that it had reached an agreement with Gary Lineker, a star sports personality, that will allow him to return to hosting its flagship soccer program, “Match of the Day.”The move defuses a crisis that began with a politically charged post that Mr. Lineker posted on Twitter last week about the British government’s immigration policy and escalated into a staff mutiny that threatened the BBC’s reputation and stability.“Gary is a valued part of the BBC and I know how much the BBC means to Gary, and I look forward to him presenting our coverage this coming weekend,” Tim Davie, the broadcaster’s director general, said in a statement.Mr. Davie said the BBC would launch an independent review into its social media guidelines.In a Twitter post, Mr. Lineker said, “After a surreal few days, I’m delighted that we have navigated a way through this.” He also thanked his colleagues at the network who had supported him.Mr. Lineker’s standoff with the BBC had set off a noisy national debate about free expression, government influence and the role of a revered, if beleaguered, public broadcaster in an era of polarized politics and freewheeling social media.It came after a walkout by Mr. Lineker’s soccer colleagues forced the BBC to radically curtail its coverage of a national obsession, reducing the chatty flagship show he usually anchors, “Match of the Day,” to 20 commentary-free minutes on Saturday.The BBC struggled over the weekend to work out a compromise with Mr. Lineker that would put him back on the air, after days of controversy about his criticism of a government plan to crack down on asylum seekers.But the fallout from the dispute is likely to be wide and long-lasting, casting doubt over the corporation’s management, which has made political impartiality a priority but has faced persistent questions about its own close ties to the Conservative government.“All this has put the BBC’s independence at risk, and its reputation at risk,” said Claire Enders, a London-based media researcher and the founder of Enders Analysis. “That’s unfortunate because this is, at heart, a dispute over whether the BBC can impose its social media guidelines on a contractor.”Mr. Lineker, 62, is no ordinary contractor, of course. He is perhaps the BBC’s biggest name, a beloved sports figure who made a smooth transition from the playing field to the broadcasting booth, where he has been a weekly fixture since 1999, analyzing games and shooting the breeze with other retired sports stars. He is the BBC’s highest-paid on-air personality, earning 1.35 million pounds, about $1.6 million, in 2022.But Mr. Lineker, who grew up in a working-class family in Leicester, has never kept his views on social issues a secret. When the government announced strict new immigration plans to cut down on asylum seekers, he posted on Twitter, “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”The British home secretary, Suella Braverman, who is spearheading the policy to stop migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats, said that Mr. Lineker’s comments diminished the atrocities of the Holocaust. Other Conservative lawmakers said that he had misused his BBC platform — not for the first time — to voice a political opinion.“We need to make sure we maintain that trust in the independence and impartiality of the BBC,” the chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said on Sunday to a BBC journalist, Laura Kuenssberg.The BBC is not the only media organization to hit turbulence over questions about political expression and social media. Tensions have flared at British newspapers, as well as at The Washington Post and The New York Times, over the Twitter posts of journalists, sometimes critical of their own employers.“This is a period of social change, where public attitudes toward the media and social media are rapidly evolving,” said Mark Thompson, a former director general of the BBC who was later the chief executive of The New York Times Company. “Editorial teams around the world are racing to catch up.”What makes Mr. Lineker’s case especially complicated is both his job status — he is a contractor, not a full-time employee, who works for BBC Sports as opposed to BBC News — and the broadcaster’s enforcement of its social media guidelines, which critics say is haphazard at best and hypocritical at worst.Alan Sugar, a British businessman who hosts the BBC’s version of the American reality TV show “The Apprentice,” has tweeted vociferously against a union leader who has pursued a confrontation with the government, as well as against a former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, whom Mr. Lineker has also criticized.Mr. Lineker got into no apparent trouble with his bosses about that, or for speaking out on the air about human rights abuses in Qatar during his coverage of the World Cup soccer tournament there last year.Mr. Davie, a former marketing executive who also had links to the Conservative Party, has come under fire for his handling of the dispute with Mr. Lineker. In an interview with the BBC over the weekend, he apologized for the spiraling crisis, which forced the broadcaster to all but scrap two days of sports programming.“This has been a tough time for the BBC,” Mr. Davie said. “Success for me is getting Gary back on air and together we are giving to the audiences that world-class sports coverage which, as I say, I’m sorry we haven’t been able to deliver today.”Mr. Davie, who was appointed during the Johnson government, has made upholding the BBC’s political impartiality one of his major goals as director general. But he denied that the broadcaster was bowing to pressure from the government or Conservative politicians, and said he had no plans to resign. More