As President Trump greeted dignitaries and business leaders on Tuesday during his state visit to Saudi Arabia, he was met by a very familiar face: Gianni Infantino, the president of soccer’s governing body, FIFA, who has been a loyal backer since Mr. Trump’s first term.
The close relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Infantino, a Swiss-Italian soccer administrator, has for years raised eyebrows in soccer circles and beyond. The friendship appears to go beyond one between a leader of a World Cup host nation — the United States is co-hosting the next edition of the quadrennial tournament in 2026 with Mexico and Canada — and the head of global soccer.
On Wednesday, Mr. Infantino will join Mr. Trump on the second leg of his presidential tour of Gulf States in Qatar, the thumb-shaped peninsula bordering Saudi Arabia that hosted the World Cup in 2022. The soccer boss is expected to preside over a ceremony in which the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, will hand World Cup hosting duties to Mr. Trump.
Representatives of Canada and Mexico are not expected to be present. At the White House last week, Mr. Trump, whose tariffs have stoked tensions with the two U.S. neighbors, joked that Mr. Infantino had correctly downplayed their roles in the World Cup.
Mr. Infantino’s travels with Mr. Trump this week surprised FIFA members, who have gathered thousands of miles away in Paraguay for the organization’s annual congress. A FIFA board meeting in Paraguay that had been set for this week was hastily moved to a video conference so that Mr. Infantino could travel with the U.S. delegation to the Gulf.
“The FIFA president has accepted invitations to attend a series of important events with world leaders, where FIFA World Cups will also be discussed,” FIFA said in a statement. Mr. Infantino is now scheduled to travel to Paraguay to host the congress on Thursday, which had been pushed back by an hour to accomodate changes.
Mr. Infantino has also forged his own close ties to the Gulf since taking over the scandal-ridden FIFA in 2016. Though he promised to clean up the organization, his tenure has led to yet more scrutiny of how the soccer body conducts its business, especially after it changed its rules last year to allow Saudi Arabia, a major financial sponsor of the organization, to be awarded hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup.
The ceremony in Qatar is in keeping with how Mr. Infantino has focused on Mr. Trump as a pillar of next year’s tournament. It would not be the first time he has put the president center stage.
In 2020, Mr. Infantino served as something of a warm-up act for a dinner Mr. Trump hosted during his first term at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He was in Dubai later that year when Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement to normalize relations, a deal brokered by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.
Last year, Mr. Infantino tasked Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump with participating in the draw for a new club tournament, the Club World Cup, that will be played for the first time this summer, in the United States.
Mr. Infantino was onstage for Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January, and has temporarily given the Club World Cup’s ornate gold trophy to the White House, where it has been on display next to the Resolute Desk.
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