Decoding FIFA’s rhetorical power: How Infantino’s inspirational language obscures structural control of global football
Original framing: “How to speak Fifa” — Financial Times
The original framing omits FIFA’s colonial legacy in football governance, the erasure of Global South perspectives in decision-making, and the suppression of player unions and marginalized communities. It ignores historical parallels like FIFA’s collaboration with apartheid South Africa or the exploitation of migrant workers in World Cup host nations. Indigenous knowledge systems—such as communal ownership of football traditions in Indigenous cultures—are erased in favor of FIFA’s corporate ethos. The role of whistleblowers (e.g., Phaedra Almajid) and investigative journalists in exposing FIFA’s corruption is also sidelined.
Low structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
The Financial Times, as a flagship of neoliberal financial journalism, amplifies FIFA’s official narrative by framing Infantino’s rhetoric as a neutral ‘user’s guide’ rather than a tool of ideological control. This framing serves the interests of FIFA’s corporate sponsors, Western football elites, and the financial sector by depoliticizing football governance and presenting it as a matter of personal interpretation rather than structural power. The article obscures the role of FIFA’s opaque financial networks, which redistribute wealth upward while silencing critics through legal threats and regulatory capture.
Marginalized voices—including women, LGBTQ+ players, migrant workers, and Global South fans—are systematically excluded from FIFA’s decision-making, despite constituting the majority of football’s stakeholders. The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup highlighted how media narratives still frame women’s football as secondary, while Infantino’s rhetoric ignores pay equity or safety concerns. Migrant workers in Qatar 2022, who built stadiums under conditions akin to modern slavery, were erased from FIFA’s ‘legacy’ narratives. Player unions like FIFPro have repeatedly warned about FIFA’s anti-democratic practices, yet their voices are sidelined in favor of corporate PR.
FIFA’s ‘inspirational’ rhetoric is a Trojan horse for a governance model that perpetuates colonial hierarchies, financial opacity, and the erasure of marginalized voices, as the Financial Times’ framing obscures.
The organization’s origins in 20th-century European soft power and its current alignment with neoliberal financial interests reveal a pattern of elite capture, where Infantino’s charisma masks systemic dysfunction. Cross-culturally, this model clashes with Indigenous and Global South traditions that view football as a communal commons, not a corporate asset. The solution lies in dismantling FIFA’s authoritarian structure through fan ownership, transparency, and decolonization—pathways already emerging in grassroots movements and regional leagues. The trickster’s irony is that FIFA’s own contradictions (e.g., its ‘legacy’ claims vs. Qatar 2022’s abuses) may ultimately force its unraveling, but only if marginalized stakeholders seize the carnival of disruption to rewrite football’s future.