Inside Track: Infantino’s suggestion has rightly been red-carded
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
Money is the root of all evil, we are told. Maybe and maybe not. It’s good to have some in your pocket when you’re going on a message, or have a bill to pay.
However, when it’s used to try to influence, sport in particular, it loses its name. Filthy lucre, it becomes.
As if he hadn’t done enough damage to soccer as head of the world organisation, FIFA, agreeing to a request from his pal, Donald Trump, to have a US player reinstated after he’d been red-carded during the World Cup, Gianni Infantino wanted to sell the game’s jewel crown.
There are millions to be made, so why not sell a stake in the World Cup to people or businesses with deep pockets, the Italian said. It doesn’t matter if the competition goes the way of golf’s LIV, we have money.
After all, we got away with our dilution of the competition by increasing the number of teams qualifying for the finals to 48, and might even have a go at 64 for the next celebration, he might have added.
UEFA, European football’s governing body, backed by every country under its auspices, and along with other associations throughout the world, was totally opposed to the idea. It said it would have no involvement with the next World Cup if Infantino’s lure of big bucks had been successful.
And we ask: is Gaelic football and hurling, and, indeed, all amateur sports, not the attractions they are because their practitioners are in it for the love of the game.
Over 80,000 turn up at Croke Park four times in succession in recent weeks, for two All-Ireland football semi-finals and a final, and a hurling final, knowing those on the field are chasing nothing more than a Celtic Cross, playing for the love of their counties.
There might not have been so many there if it was known there was dough for Joe, or John, or Con, or Ron, at the end of the day. It’s the beauty of the non-paid games.
It can’t be said Infantino has seen sense, withdrawing his suggestion – he had none in the first place in making the proposal.