Gianni Infantino spent the last year cosying up to Donald Trump. Three days before the World Cup's opening match, that image problem got significantly worse.
The FIFA president has been named in a criminal complaint filed in a French court by Michel Platini, the former UEFA president who was banned from football in 2015 — a ban that directly handed Infantino the FIFA presidency the following year. Platini's lawyers allege Infantino orchestrated a conspiracy of false accusation and influence peddling to block his boss from ever reaching football's top job. A separate civil lawsuit seeking damages from FIFA is also being prepared.
The Platini angle runs deep
Platini wasn't some mid-table administrator. He was a World Cup winner, one of the finest players France ever produced, and a respected UEFA chief — widely considered the favourite to take over FIFA in 2016. Then came the ban: eight years from FIFA's ethics committee over a payment received from a colleague. The Court of Arbitration for Sport cut it to four years. A Swiss federal criminal court acquitted him entirely in 2022.
With Platini sidelined, Infantino — who had been serving under him as UEFA general secretary — stepped in and claimed the presidency. That sequence of events has never sat quietly, and now it's in front of a French court.
Platini's lawyers will be pushing for both criminal accountability and financial damages from FIFA itself. FIFA has not yet responded to requests for comment.
A World Cup already on the back foot
This lands on top of a tournament that was already generating the wrong kind of headlines before a ball had been kicked. Ticket pricing controversies, tens of thousands of unsold seats at U.S. venues, and the deportation of a top referee have clouded preparations for the first World Cup spread across three nations — the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Infantino's strategy of keeping Trump close — including inviting him on stage at the Club World Cup final, then staying silent when Trump kept the trophy and forced Chelsea to accept a replica — was transparently transactional. The idea was smoother logistics, better optics, a friendlier political backdrop. Instead, the tournament opens under the shadow of a criminal complaint against the man running world football.
Platini waited years for this. He filed three days before the opening match. That timing is not an accident.
