Jordanian FA chief accuses Infantino’s FIFA of ‘blackmail’
PARIS, France (AFP)—The Jordanian football association president on Tuesday accused FIFA and Gianni Infantino of attempted “blackmail” and of withholding prize money in a scathing statement.
FIFA chief Infantino has come under serious pressure over a failed plan to open the World Cup to private investment.
Prince Ali bin Hussein, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the FIFA presidency, said the Jordanian FA was still waiting to be paid for reaching last year’s FIFA Arab Cup final.
He also bemoaned that several Jordan fans were not granted visas to enter the United States for the recent World Cup despite having tickets, and said Jordan’s World Cup prize money is being taxed by the “US government through FIFA”.
The FA’s president claimed he was told that endorsing Infantino’s re-election bid “would go a long way towards helping our FA out”.
“We have been waiting for reward money for our players since December for the Arab Cup in Qatar, which is a FIFA event,” Prince Ali, also a former FIFA vice-president, said in a statement on social media.
“The money our team should receive for having reached the final has not been delivered yet, while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve.
“It is clear the problem really is with leadership.
“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 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.”
Prince Ali lost to Sepp Blatter in the 2015 FIFA presidential election, and was then third the following year behind Infantino and Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa.
Infantino, who succeeded Blatter in 2016, was widely expected to be re-elected as FIFA president for a fourth term next March but his position is now under threat.
Earlier Tuesday, former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s chief of global football development, and world football’s governing body’s secretary-general Mattias Grafstrom both criticised Infantino’s handling of the scrapped investor plan.
Several of UEFA’s member associations — Wales, Finland, Sweden and Serbia — have withdrawn their letters of support for Infantino and the English FA is strongly rumoured to be on the verge of also joining them.
