Arsene Wenger’s continued silence over Gianni Infantino’s failed plan to sell the World Cup has raised questions about the former Arsenal manager’s association with the FIFA president, according to The Telegraph.
Wenger was once a prominent critic of the corrupting influence of money on football, but his current position alongside Infantino appears increasingly difficult to reconcile with those views, the newspaper reported on Sunday.
Senior advisers, chief operating officers and even United States President Donald Trump have distanced themselves, to varying degrees, from the embattled Swiss football administrator. Wenger’s position, however, remains unclear.
The 76-year-old Frenchman is not obliged to publicly criticise his superior. Yet the controversy falls within the area in which Wenger built his professional reputation: the governance, development and future direction of football.
Whether fair or not, outside observers are likely to connect Wenger’s role with the nature of the failed plan and question whether he had any involvement in it. His silence does not, in itself, amount to complicity. But The Telegraph argues that his presence beside Infantino gives the FIFA president a degree of legitimacy.
That association dates back to November 2019, when FIFA announced Wenger’s appointment with an image of the two men shaking hands and smiling for the cameras.
Wenger has continued to appear publicly alongside Infantino. When Infantino marked 10 years as FIFA president, Wenger praised him by saying he was “always ready to move forward and create new ideas”. During the World Cup, Wenger was also frequently seen sitting behind Infantino at matches or greeting him in the stands.
For supporters who revered Wenger during his time at Arsenal, his close relationship with FIFA in recent years has been difficult to accept. The situation has become even more problematic, The Telegraph suggested, as Infantino’s presidency has entered what it described as a new level of toxicity.
Wenger joined FIFA after a long managerial career at Arsenal, where he became one of the defining figures in the club’s history. His reputation was built not only on success on the pitch but also on his advocacy of technical development and his outspoken views on how the game should be run.
The newspaper says that supporters once portrayed him as football’s moral compass and a devoted protector of the sport. They now see him as closely linked to those attempting to reshape football permanently in pursuit of financial gains.
That contrast has placed renewed focus on what Wenger will do next. The central question, according to The Telegraph, is whether he will remain on Infantino’s side and continue to support him, or make clear that the failed plan went beyond what should have been acceptable.
The direction Wenger chooses could affect a reputation that, the newspaper believes, has already been damaged by his relationship with Infantino. His future public stance may therefore determine whether he remains associated with the FIFA president’s agenda or distances himself from it.
