It’s over.

At least as the cards on the table are now – the War of Roses, Game of Thrones, Choose-Your-Favourite-Analogy – fight between the ruling sports barons of FIFA is finished. Its finished with ruling King Gianni firmly on his throne and the risk of having his head, metaphorically, impaled on the pillory of public media scrutiny and a possible arrest for corruption gone for the moment.

Here is why.

The battle for control of FIFA is, purportedly, being fought between six continental football associations: conglomerates of barons/families to all name one king if you like the Game of Thrones comparison. Africa (AFC), Latin America (CONMEBOL) have declared firmly for the current administration of Gianni Infantino: the Europeans (UEFA) and North Americans (Concacaf) are running the rebellion.

However, this battle for control of FIFA is not fought in the media columns of British newspapers and TV shows. If it were, FIFA would be forever controlled by one of those crumpled, twisted, ex-private school boys so-beloved by the English establishment.

Nor is control of FIFA in the hands of the New York Times and the usual American power structure. If it were, some corruption-is-the-normal, high-priced US law firm would be running the organization and charging hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in the enshittification fees that are so usual in this country.

The battle for FIFA is in the votes of 211 football associations of various ‘countries’ around the world. That is more countries than the United Nations. There are entities that are unrecognized as independent countries (step forward Wales and Scotland) in FIFA. There are tiny island enclaves with fewer people in their entire population than registered players in the New York City soccer leagues (step forward Cayman Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, or St. Vincent and the Grenadines).

Each of these countries inside FIFA, regardless of size or influence, has one vote.

The $5 million dollars that FIFA, currently, pays these associations counts for a lot. So do business class flights to Zurich and nice, expense-free stays in six-stars hotels for their national football association executives: many of whom know exactly which side of their bread the butter is on.

The Big Boys of the Soccer World

The big boys of the soccer world – Germany, England, France, Spain – keep appealing for better financial controls and “professional standards” inside the world’s game. Do you think if you are the president of the national football association in a tiny country which struggles to get a daily flight to Miami, that you want professional standards?! Crikey – That is the last thing! You want to maintain a system where your vote counts just as much as one of the big boys.

Gianni Infantino is acutely aware of this equation. It is why, a few days ago, he promised more bonus payments to all football associations – with, of course, the unspoken reminder of where the cash was coming from.

Speaking of “big boys” – not all the powerful national football associations want proper standards of professional conduct either. Have you seen the situation in Argentina? There must be a non-corrupt executive somewhere in their national football environment – I’m just not sure if their federal finance/tax police have found one! The entire Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, including their President – are under formal investigation by the financial detectives of Argentine law enforcement and the FBI. This is not an environment where everyone is going to welcome “professional standards” demanded by the Germans or Scandinavians.

The End of the Rebellion

The writing on the wall was when UEFA could not enforce a proposed boycott of the under-20 Women’s World Cup just a few days after their insurrection began.

I know women’s soccer. I was a coach, briefly, for a top-regional team in Canada. Now, I am the academic mentor of my University of New Haven’s soccer team. If you can find me a more powerless demographic in world sports – please do. They are the virtually unprotected community in sports. There is a constant stream of abuse cases and scandals. So if the would-be rebels of international soccer cannot get that demographic to boycott a FIFA tournament – what hope do they have for the influential groups like the men’s national teams? Get one of their big stars like Mbappe or the big European national teams or even the big European sponsors like Adidas to pull out of a tournament – and the end would be very near for Infantino.

In the final days of the Canadian elections of 2015, when Justin Trudeau was riding his own version of Trudeau-mania, he began campaigning in the Alberta heartland of his opponents the Conservatives.

This is now the situation with the fight to control FIFA. Last week, Infantino flew for the second time, to the Caribbean to campaign among many of those small nations of Concacaf to cultivate their support. He was successful, with the deeply controversial Jamaican Football Association (speaking of allegations of gender discrimination – their football association, allegedly, among a host of other scandals, kept the FIFA World Cup bonus money given to the women players) – endorsed Infantino.

This week, the small, European football association of Latvia threw their support to Infantino. No insult – but it is just about the only time in the recent history of sport that Latvians have had any influence. So if UEFA and Concacaf, are losing some of their own national associations, what hope do they have in Africa or Latin America whose continental bodies are officially supporting Infantino?

I write all of the above not in moral terms nor because I am a Gianni Infantino loyalist but in the same way a sports journalist covers a football game. This is the state of play. There may be a surprise, the sporting political equivalent of a last-minute hat-trick, but at the moment – it looks like it is game, set, match to Infantino’s version of FIFA.