Arsene Wenger slams Infantino amid blackmail claims

President of the Jordan Football Association, Prince Ali Bin Hussein, who lost to Infantino in the most recent FIFA presidential election, took to social media to make some bombshell claims against the crisis-hot boss.

“There is no shortage of issues regarding FIFA. Let me start by clarifying what some of these are from an FA perspective, in particular that of Jordan going into a World Cup for the first time.

“We are a small country with a minimal budget for our FA and had to deal with enormous hurdles. First, getting our fans into the USA: not all were granted VISAS, even though they had tickets -which we also know were sold at exorbitant prices. Secondly, we are being taxed by the US govt through FIFA for our participation.

“Money that should go to players and staff. This was not the case for those who played and set up camp in Canada and Mexico. But we happened to be in the USA so now we face these huge costs in taxes for having participated. Thirdly we have been waiting for reward money for our players since December for the Arab cup in Qatar, which is a FIFA event.

“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 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.”

Furthermore, former Arsenal manager and FIFA staffer Arsene Wenger has taken aim at Infantino saying the retraction of his plan to create a sister company to control and oversee tournaments – including the World Cups – to then sell shares of the subsidiary to private equity, was “absolutely necessary and beyond question”.

“Together with my team, I oversee the data analysis of the game, the FIFA online training centre, the development of youth education through 60 academies across 60 countries where they are most needed, and youth competitions around the world,” Wenger said.

“In addition, I am a technical adviser to IFAB. I was not involved in this strategic plan and first became aware of the project through media reports.

“The decision to withdraw the project was absolutely necessary and beyond question, because I firmly believe in an independent FIFA that serves our game with commitment, transparency and integrity.”

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