FIFA has been accused of “blackmailing” Jordan over World Cup money in return for their support for Gianni Infantino to stay on as president.
The Swiss is under mounting pressure amid the fallout from a plan to seek private investors in a company to run FIFA’s tournaments, including the men’s and women’s World Cups.
The support of national associations in Asia could prove critical to his survival but the president of the Jordanian Football Association, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, wrote on X that his organisation “certainly” would not endorse Infantino after alleging FIFA sought to secure his support by promising it would help with the recovery of money he said was owed to the JFA.
Prince Ali, who stood for the FIFA presidency in 2015 against Sepp Blatter and against Infantino the following year, hit out at the difficulties faced by Jordanian fans seeking to enter the United States for this summer’s World Cup and the “exorbitant” price of tickets, and detailed the “huge costs” in taxes his association faced due to being based in the U.S. rather than Canada or Mexico for the finals.
He then revealed Jordan was still awaiting prize money from last year’s Arab Cup, which is organised by FIFA, “while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve.”
“It is clear the problem really is with leadership,” Prince Ali added.
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“For months, FIFA has been refusing to help us on any of these or other matters – until it was verbally communicated to me during the World Cup that if I endorsed Infantino it would go a long way to helping our FA out.
“We pride ourselves in Jordan in upholding ethical values. We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now. But the whole situation amounts to blackmail and we refuse to give in to that.”
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FIFA declined to respond to Prince Ali’s remarks.
Asia is seen as the key continent in any presidential contest that may yet be forced, with Europe and nations from North America, Central America and the Caribbean expected to want Infantino out while Africa, South America and Oceania are expected to back him.
