Gianni Infantino's echoes of Donald Trump point to a Fifa as far from transparency as ever

The Swiss-Italian president used terms like 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'

Infantino said 'Fifa-bashing' had become a sport in some countries (Getty)

It always did seem ominous that Gianni Infantino hails from the same stretch of the Rhone as Sepp Blatter: a 9km walk which would take two hours or so to make. The sense of ‘plus ca change’ was staggering to behold when Fifa’s Swiss-Italian president stood up to address the assembled football associations of 209 countries in Bahrain on Thursday.

He attacked the “fake news” and “alternative facts” which he claimed were damaging his organisation – an utterance as stunning for the vocabulary of Donald Trump as for the lack of self-awareness with which it was delivered. This has been the week when Fifa’s credibility and supposed willingness to tackle corruption has been reduced to shreds at its 67th Congress, as the chairmen of the organisation’s investigatory and judicial committees have been abruptly and clinically removed from post their posts by Infantino. Both men had wanted to serve another four year term to complete their work investigating hundreds of cases.

The deposed pair - Hans-Joachim Eckert and Cornel Borbély - have described their defenestration as political. It is certainly seen as Infantino’s decision - perhaps because he did not want Blatter appointees at the helm of his organisation; just as probably because he was also less than happy with an ethics committee decision to investigate him last year. Infantino was cleared of wrongdoing but evidently considers himself as unimpeachable as Blatter ever was.

“Sadly, the truth is not what is necessarily true but what people believe is true,” Infantino said. “There is a lot of fake news and alternative facts about Fifa circulating. Fifa bashing has become a national sport in some countries.”

Who, he was asked, might be disseminating the falsehoods? “Generally it’s my feeling,” he replied, with a further nod to Trump.

Infantino seemed to have in mind those Fifa agents of reform who have either quit in frustration or been removed from post. At last year's Congress in Mexico, Swiss-Italian businessman Domenico Scala left his role as audit and compliance committee chairman in protest at what he said was Infantino's attempts to curtail his independence.

These people, Infantino proclaimed, were “highly-paid experts” who simply “rubber-stamped a sick and wrong system.” He warned: “We will not accept any governance lessons from these self-professed governance gurus who failed miserably.” Of Eckert and Borbély’s removal, he declared: “I don’t think we should make a tragedy out of it.”

Infantino was speaking at Fifa's 67th Congress (Getty)

There was something dismally familiar about Infantino attacking those who are prepared to challenge him. Remember Fifa’s onslaught on the "unpatriotic" and "sensationalist" BBC and the indefatigable investigative journalist Andrew Jennings in 2010? They’d had the temerity to broadcast a Panorama programme on the eve of the announcement of 2018/2022 World Cup host countries, suggesting that cash had bought the tournaments, which subsequently went to Russia and Qatar.

When Infantino made his pitch for this presidential post, 15 months ago, he seemed to represent something new and democratic, switching between a myriad of languages as he spoke of wanting millions more of Fifa's $5.5bn revenue redistributed back to the countries. It didn’t take long for him to become another of the grey men; a politicking score-settler, swooning on Thursday over the hospitality afforded by a Bahraini ruling family which brutally violated human rights when its citizens dared to argue back, six years ago.