State Department denies call with under-pressure FIFA president Infantino

Gianni Infantino apparently thought a phone call to Foggy Bottom would bail him out of a mess he made himself. FIFA wants to sell chunks of the World Cup to private equity, the soccer world is furious about it, and now the guy running the tournament is reportedly hoping Donald Trump's people will ride to the rescue. The State Department says that call never happened. Whether it did or didn't, the fact that this is even a story tells you how tangled Infantino has gotten himself with this administration.

There's something almost comic about a global sports bureaucrat treating the White House like a fixer service. FIFA is not a struggling small business. It's a wealthy international organization that makes its own decisions about who gets a piece of the world's biggest sporting event. If Infantino sold access to private equity and now the membership is revolting, that's on him, not on Washington to smooth over with a friendly phone call.

What's actually worth watching here is the posture. Infantino has spent real political capital cozying up to Trump, showing up at events, playing nice, presumably banking on the idea that a good relationship pays off when he needs a favor. This is that bill coming due, or at least him hoping it will. The administration denying the call suggests either they don't want the association right now, or they genuinely see no reason to get in the middle of FIFA's internal financial fights.

Either way, Americans hosting next summer's World Cup shouldn't want their government seen as bailing out a foreign sports executive from a bad business decision. If Infantino wants credibility with the fans and federations he's angered, he should fix his own governance problem instead of hoping a call to Washington makes it disappear.