The Chaser Report - FIFA Boss Scores Infantin-Own Goal

Episode Date: August 2, 2026

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has tried to bring world peace through the humble game of football, and everyone has spat his offer back in his face. Dom explains how the future of the World Cup was saved from itself. ---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And today, the fascinating story of how FIFA was saved from itself, at least for now. No, no, Dom. No, FIFA's been ruined. Haven't you heard? They're not going with the privatisation plan.

Okay. Well, get into FIFA's attempt to. the World Cup to... To unleash freedom. To Jared Kushner's family. Unleash freedom to Jared Kushner's family. And a company called Thrive Eternal in return. And I'm always fascinated to see kind of naked power plays in action.

And when you've got one naked power play where it was basically... And Charles clearly supports it, but an evil plan designed to force the hand and then another power play, which they hadn't counted on, which became even more powerful than FIFA itself. I would just look at it as unleashing the creative possibilities by incentivising people through options and shares. You wanted a share. You wanted to thrive a totally, didn't you? All right, we'll get into it after these ads, probably for a privatised FIFA World Cup or something.

Or mining seems to be popular. Now, just before we get into this, Dom, I do need, there's just a slight conflict of interest issue that I just need to mention. I mean, obviously, my opinions are my own. But we were the chief advisors to FIFA. What economics consulting solutions was the chief? We actually came up with the name. What was it?

Thrive Eternal. Yeah. It sounds like a threat, doesn't it? Yeah. No, it's the classic lack of irony of Jared Kushner. All right. Let me just explain what this was if you missed the story. So people might recall Jani Infantino.

So Jani Infantino is the president of FIFA, at least for now, probably not for much longer. Yes. And the whole point. one about him was the previous administration, Seth, Slater, was incredibly corrupt. Yes, was sacked and prosecuted for corruption. Yes, he was, yeah, that's right. He even got, did he go to jail?

Oh, he may, probably not, but he lost his job. Set Blatter was a big critic of this idea. Well, if he said, you shouldn't take money out in the open, take it out of the table. That's the fee petition. And then Inventino was brought in. The new broom. To be even more corrupt, was that the idea? And this is the guy who first must be said, the FIFA Peace Prize.

We talked about this a bit before. The hilarity of that does not go away. I think the first reaction after Donald Trump declared war on Iran was just basically shock that the laureate of the first ever FIFA Peace Prize could become a warmonger. But Johnny Infatino, president of FIFA. But do you know the background? Have you ever read up on the background to that? The FIFA Peace Prize.

Yeah. Which is that Infantino himself. always wanted the Nobel Peace Prize, right? He's working to this through... He thought that his work, sort of developing soccer throughout the world and bringing peace through soccer, would be enough to get him a Peace Prize. So he, in some ways, is very sympathico with Trump.

Like, he feels aggrieved. They both feel they deserve a prize. That they've sort of missed out on this prize in life, the Nobel Peace Prize. generally given to people who actually create peace. It probably is the most prestigious prize that you can get from anywhere, which I think you should be working towards. And mega millions.

Yeah, anyway. So, Johnny Fetino, president of FIFA, the soccer obviously governing body. And one of the things that I love about Johnny Infantino is that during the World Cup, which he expanded to the 48 teams and so on, and 64, they think, for the next one, he insisted. 64.

64 teams for the next one. So what is it going to be? Vanuatu, New Zealand. Well, because, I mean, everyone was joking about some of the teams. Nauru. Well, they've changed their names. Nauru's changed their name. To Nui, is it?

Yeah, something like that. Anyway, so I'm getting distracted. But, you know. No, the distraction is the game here. But Capo Verde, everybody was going, Capo Verde? Well, fantastic. Is like, what, 14,000 people, is I mean?

Yeah, we want more Capo Verdees. Yeah, that's true. That's what they're doing in the next World Cup. Maybe it can just be suburbs of Sydney could be in it. Nowero is the new way of saying. In A-O-E-R-O. Oh, okay, now-ero. No-ero.

Sounds kind of cool. That sounds very cool. I wouldn't go to Nauru. I would go to Now-Ero. Yeah. Coming soon to the World Cup. But I reckon Lidcombe should host. Should get a team.

Should field a team. Yeah. I mean, at this rate, my whole thing is keep going. Get to 256 teams. Yes. It keeps doing the multiples of two. Yeah. And I think Vatican City really needs.

Can you imagine the Vatican City team wearing classics while they play? I think that would be brilliant. But Infantino, as part of the broadcast rights for this World Cup, you know, with the hydration breaks and all the other commercial stuff. Yeah. It was a requirement that in every game, there'd be a shot of Infantino in the stands, along with other designated VVIPs. That's great.

And not only that, it had to be Infantino in the stands and the shot that they used. and the shot that they used had to be him not on his phone. Oh my God. It took a little while. It presumably had to, like, roll one camera on Infantino until they got a shot and then they just put it in. So, yeah, and that's why David Beckham kept being in the stands because they knew, like, American audiences would simply not be interested in.

And that's all the American football players who were there were, were there for that reason for the American viewers. Yeah, right. So during the past few years, they had been cooking up this plan to sell the World Cup. It's just, it's amazing. they were going to sell off the World Cup. So FIFA's biggest asset. And they're going to spin it into, and the club World Cup, too,

spin it into something called FFE. Yes. Which is lots of F bombs were dropped. It was Future Fund Enterprises. You came up with this. FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA Forward Enterprises, that's right. Very lankan or me.

I mean, that wasn't even top of our list. Oh, really? Yeah, that was one of those ones where, you know, when the client says to you, oh, and can we, Infantino really likes this name. FIFA Ford Enterprises. So you slip it in. But, you know, like, James is a branding expert.

Yeah, that's true. We had, I presume your first version of it was FIFA fraud enterprises. That's right. No, no, but there were tons. There were things like, you know, Ballacon, you know, World Ball. You know, like all these sort of like far better names. F ball. And then they went with future whatever it was.

FIFA Ford Enterprises. Yeah. Yeah. And so the theory was Infantino would be the managing director of that. Wow, what a surprise. And get a salary more commensurate to what he thought he should be paid. Apparently, he wanted to get paid what the NFL commissioner gets paid, which apparently $64 million US dollars a year or something like that.

So that was part of the thing. Just to recognize his market value. Yes, exactly. Not to cash in. How much do you reckon the shares that they were going to sell? What's the difference between recognizing market value and cashing in? About $64 million. About $63 million.

That's right. And one of the things I find so strange about it is that the notion that owning like permanently, so it wasn't just that FIFA was spinning this off into another company. They were then selling a proportion of the company to investors. And they'd already picked the investors. They weren't having some sort of big prospectors. No, and go to the highest bidder. One of those global investor banks advise them on this. I don't know, JPM Walker or someone. But they'd already picked it was going to be. And it was going to be Thrive Eternal. Thrive Eternal. This investment, you know, venture capital fund, owned by Jared Kushner's brother, who are Beelzebub Kushner, I don't know what the guy is, Josh Kushman, his name might be. Josh, that's an American, and so they, they'd pick this. And the amount that had been discussed, do you remember the figure? Because this is the thing that I think you'll actually find hard to believe in your,

whether with your economics had on or not. I can't remember, I can't remember what the figure was. I want you to, I don't know, just because I want it, I want you to think about what it worked. Because I think it was like, maybe six. $60 billion, because the revenue, I think, was $14 billion for the game. They made at least $14. Yeah. And so if you go, it's probably like five times multiple of that.

So that's sort of what, five times. Yeah, 65. That sort of figure? 60, 60. The figure that was cited was 20 billion US dollars. Oh, so it's very cheap. Compared to. So, wait a minute, you make your money back in a year in like one World Cup.

So, sorry, let me be really clear on this. I've just checked. this with my old friend AI. 20 billion was the total valuation on future forward enterprise. And so this is all of the, all the future World Cups they had valued. At 20 billion.

Even though one World Cup makes 14 billion. Yeah, yeah. And so all of them makes 20 billion. And so thrive, I think I've got a bridge that we should try and sell Jared Kushner. Bridge. But I mean, he's the one.

Oh, no, no, yeah. No, that's right. Yeah, yeah. So they're only going to pay four. billion to own 20% of the world up. Fucking hell. Fairly extraordinary. Yeah.

Particularly given that it's about to get that much bigger. Yeah. So yeah, that's what I couldn't work out. But surely the way to get this across the line. Because I looked at it and went, oh, that's quite clearly corrupt. But it'll definitely get up. Yes. Because they'll, it'll be worth so much more than that that they'll just have tons of money.

They will have put aside several billion dollars to bribe everyone. And that's how they'll get it up. they'll go to UEFA and they'll go to each club and go, we'll give you $10 million or just the decision maker. That is exactly how they plan to make it work. Right. So the way to get this across the line. Okay. One thing to note is that no one knew about this, right?

So none of the, there are, I think, eight FIFA vice presidents, not a single one of them, or at least one guy resigned saying nobody didn't know about this at all. The confederation, so like, as you say, the Europeans, UEFA, the AFC is the Asian one. Even the North American one. Concafac. He didn't know about it. So none of them knew about it. But the plan was presented to, it's ultimately the member association. So it's each country.

Guess how much of the money for this plan, Infantino was planning. And this is the trick that they had. This is why I think it's such interesting exercise of power. The thing was he was going to offer the same amount to every country. So because it's one vote, one value. Yes, exactly. So Cabo Verde, who has like three people in the entire country. Well, they're in Nowero.

Yeah. Nowero. Um, yes. So, presumably the Football Association is one dude. And so how much was it? Let's call Des. Was it? Was it, in Nowero.

Was it 10 million dollars or something? What was it? Yeah, it was very little. Yeah. It was, it was. But to them. 20 to 40 million dollars per country. Yeah, right.

Yeah. So, and what the thing was, I said, well, this is for development funds. It's going to be amazing for your development funds. Yeah. All the small countries. Yes. Oh, and if you don't vote. for it, we're going to have to cut your development funds.

I love it. So, I mean, you can vote for it and get the funds if you want. But if you don't, yeah, we're not going to really be able to fund your little academy. And now we're going to build a little FIFA academy in every country. That was part of the plan. They're going to open this new academy everywhere. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. It's just both evil and corrupt and sort of brilliant in a way.

It's quite brilliant. It's quite brilliant. You know, oh, well, there's a hundred small countries. They will easily overwhelm or whatever it is. But why can't... The others. Good causes have evil, brilliant people doing them. Like, why don't we have somebody who goes, oh, we want to solve the world's hunger problems?

Yeah, we're going to strong arm everybody into the deal with the world hunger. Yeah. And we're just going to force everyone to do it in some evil, brilliant way. It's actually not about it. You know what I mean? Like, why can't we have evil people on our side on the side of the goodies? All right. I couldn't clear you in the world.

You know, people who, you know, want no pollution and people to be able to, peace and things are there. So the perception was that this was just selling off football, that this was basically, you know, the most beloved competition, the most watched television event in the world. Well, it was. Nothing could be further from the truth, Infantino said. This is about securing the future, unlocking investment. But the funding development.

But so was the future of the World Cup in peril following? the USA World Cup because it had been what? So, like, was anyone leaving that World Cup, which everyone loved, going, oh my God, despite like soccer is in trouble. We're going to have to do something to save it. Yeah, yeah. And it's quite extraordinary. Maybe they were banking on the idea that it would have been a complete cock up.

Maybe that was part of the plan. They were part of the whole plan. And that's why they had Jared Kushner there going, you know, you'll totally stuff it up, won't you? Well, you'll Middle East peace this whole thing. Yeah, yeah. So it's an interesting point because, I mean, I'm, as we've discussed before, quite a football fan. It's my favourite sport.

But it's incredible how resilient the tournament is to FIFA. Like the one in Qatar, where the stadiums were literally built by enslaved migrant workers whose passport had been confiscated and lots of them died. Yes. That still didn't ruin, I mean, middly due to just general heartlessness too. But that was still a really entertaining tournament, even though they were being played in these insane air-conditioned stadiums. that were then, like, torn down afterwards and shipped around the world. We talked about that at the time on the podcast. And this one, being played in America,

when it usually gives a shit about football at all. Yeah. And basically, you know, oh, it started off in Mexico and Canada, and then as soon as they got quarterfinals, all the games were in America. In football state, like, you know, Sofire Stadium or whatever. But they were great. It was an excellent tournament.

It was super entertaining. Do you think maybe this is sort of 5D chess? And actually, Infantino is a great. but he realizes that for people to really bind together and think of football as the people's game, they need an evil villain trying to destroy it as the sort of counterpoint. Oh, to bring everyone together. And he plays the sort of incompetent antagonist who keeps on getting defeated. He's the Lex Luthor.

Yes, yes, who always gets defeated. But in doing so, binds together the world of football. It would be curse you. Just fact-check myself. Yes, Infantino's proposed salary was $60 million a year, which is more than 10 times is kind of calorie. And so this was all conceived, announced suddenly, and it was like, oh, well, you pretty much have to vote for it because you were going to pay you directly. So I was all ready to go. The only problem was there are other, there's another group, particularly within football, which is quite powerful.

And that is UEFA. They run the Champions League, which is also massively popular, which was formed also by, kind of an attempt to try and get more money. You know, that's what the Champions League is. Infantino tried to do his own one with the Club World Cup, and it didn't really work so well, because the Champions League is every year. So UEFA is also very rich and powerful,

and they fight with FIFA quite regularly. So I'm not saying it on the side of the Angels, but within 24 hours of the proposal, UEFA had gotten all of their 55 member states together for an emergency meeting and passed a unanimous resolution, even the tiny, titi-dil little one, ones. Lichtenstein probably would have liked the $20 million,

whatever it was going to be. Do you know what they decided, what their power play was? What did they decide? Take a guess. What was their rebuttal? Oh, I don't know that you're stealing soccer? That's what they said. Yeah. But I'm talking about like power plays.

The power play? Like, think if there's a game of cards. What was the Trump card that they played? And I used that too. They win. We will withdraw all their teams from FIFA. And no one would ever have thought. I mean, if you're Infantino.

Why would you ever want to withdraw your teams from the World Cup? They said, we will take part in no World Cups from now, including the one next year, the Women's World Cup. Forget it. We're just done. Wait a minute. Not a single. That meant that the Matilda's definitely would have won the World Cup. I know.

I kind of feel like we should have. Yes. But then Conkopf, the North American one, so the US. The US, yes. They said the same thing. They also said, no, we're out. We're completely. They would have made it even easier for the Matildas to win.

I know. And the AFC, our one went, we need to negotiate. We're going to discuss internally on this one. And then. Did you say money? And then when, yeah, the moment that this whole thing basically can't. There's nothing that FIFA could do at all. Nothing FIFA could do.

Yeah, yeah. That was game over. Yes. Which is great. And so I do have a proposal though before we go. I think we need to float the Chaser. Yes. And in particular, the podcast, Chaser Report.

To thrive a term. I'm saying, because I think we need to have, I think my salary needs to, you know, meet market expectations. Meet up market value. And I'm not fair enough. So I'm thinking just, we value it at a very low ball. It's like FIFA did. Well, if the World Cup's worth $20 billion. Yeah.

Then I reckon the Chaser Report's worth it. least 10 billion. I would have thought so. Maybe 12 or 14. Yeah. If you can in future growth. And I'm happy to be on 30 minutes. How much do you want?

Annual salary. Yeah. Yeah, I think we could split Infantino salary between us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's pretty good. And then, but you know what will happen? What?

There'll be a boycott of it. Oh, no. So, the final question I would ask you, imagine that. Listen to boycott. Thanks to those paying subscribers, by the question I want to ask you, though, and particularly, you know, as the way economic genius that you are, what's FIFA's next move? Yeah, right.

Well, because I think that this was a weather balloon. They put it up for it to be shot down to actually come through with the next strategy, which everyone then will have to accept. You destroy the first death star and then there's another death star. Yes, exactly. Yes. And, and. I've been trying to think

I think they go legal what if they have a sort of global patent on the ball no one can have a ball unless FIFA a crisp like just literally any ball in any sport yes FIFA owns that now and they'd have their own any sphere any sphere including the planet they patent the sphere so unless FIFA gets their

payol or in Infantino gets his bucks surely he's dealing surely he's going to resign and then you know, move to a more suitable, you know, like the organisation, like running Al-Qaeda or something. There's a lot of debate about who the next June and Secretary General was going to be. Yeah. He floated the U.S. actually, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. No, so this is the thing is, yes, the same member organizations can oust him, and it's looking very likely that will happen very soon. Yeah.

He was going to run unopposed, by the way, to be the next president, and now he shot himself in the foot. Isn't the problem that they have terrible trouble recruiting for that position? Because actually, why would you ever want to be the head? Like if you're any good at soccer or any good at coaching or any good at management, you don't want to be that in that position. You want somebody else to be there. But nowadays, if you're very good at football, you've already earned as much money as you can possibly have at the time you retire.

You know who they should put as the head of FIFA? Head of FIFA. Who's the best person with the head of FIFA? I'm thinking one of the Irwin. children. Really? Yes. That's what I'm thinking.

Don't you think? Robert Irwin. Robert Irwin. Or, Bindi. Yeah, they could do it together. Do it together. I think Australia Zoo could probably use the revenue. It feels to me like the exact sort of the right career path.

I mean, I can see an amazing event where the members of FIFA vote whether or not Infantino should have to enter the crocodile pit. I'd pay for the pay-for-view version of that. I love it. All right. So they'll come back because they always do it. In fact, in European football, there's a similar thing where they were going to create a permanent super league. Because in some ways, the game's not over.

It's just one all. It's one all. It's one all. Yeah, it's going to be a penalty shootout. Yeah. Yeah, I think Infantino's headmupp uses the ball. We're part of the Oconicless Network. Catch you tomorrow.