And the next person will be just as scummy.

Exactly. Are we forgetting who Infantino replaced? The way FIFA elections work is all about money. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a conspiratorial “paper envelopes” way, but rather the reality that the overwhelming factor driving voting patterns in FIFA elections is “which candidate can bring in the most amount of money and distribute some of it to my federation?”. Infantino is set to win the upcoming election once again, because (as much as we all hate his methods) he has successfully monetised the game to the extent that it is bringing in larger revenues than ever (a 70 per cent increase within this four year cycle alone).

From the The Athletic:

Infantino’s pitch was simple, brazen and effective.

It was late February at the Hallenstadion in the Swiss city of Zurich, 20 minutes drive from the FIFA headquarters he would soon inhabit as the organisation’s ninth permanent president. At the body’s 2016 Extraordinary Congress, in his final speech ahead of the vote to anoint a successor to Sepp Blatter, Infantino told its member nations: “The money of FIFA is your money.”

It is a line he has repeated since, one which drew loud applause and steered him to the top of world football. It is a line which looks likely to keep him there, perhaps even unopposed, when he stands for re-election next year. Payments to member countries have skyrocketed under Infantino.

His assumption of the presidency saw the organisation implement its FIFA Forward programme, described at inception in rather glowing terms, if FIFA did say so itself. FIFA Forward was “an enormous leap towards the future of football”, would “serve to break down the barriers of discrimination” and had been “designed to meet international standards of prudent management and transparency”.

Whatever the truth of all that, one thing was certain: FIFA’s member associations would be receiving a lot more money.

Via the old Financial Assistance Programme operated under Blatter, FIFA’s then 209 member nations received a combined $433.7million, or around $2.1m each over the 2011-14 cycle. The world’s six member confederations — AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA — received $20m apiece. Members received further payments from directives such as the Goal programme (a total of $123m over the four-year cycle), but overall sums disbursed totalled $721.5m, or less than $3m per member once the confederation amounts were deducted.

Overnight, that changed.

Under FIFA Forward 1.0, operated between May 2016 and the end of 2018, FIFA allocated $1.079billion, a $357.1m (49 per cent) increase on the previous cycle, even though the programme was in operation for 17 months less than the four years of a full cycle.

Forward 1.0 conferred up to $5million, over a four-year cycle, to each member; Forward 2.0 increased that to $6m; Forward 3.0, which will end this year, gifts member associations up to $8m over four years, up to $5m to zonal and regional associations and up to $60m to the confederations.

In all, inclusive of the budgeted $792m in 2026, FIFA Forward will have allocated $5.042bn in a little over a decade. The full amount given to associations will be even higher.

Another huge pot of cash, generated from this World Cup, is budgeted to flow to members and confederations from 2026 onward. The current cycle budget includes $660million allocated to a ‘Football Development Fund’ (FDF) which, while distinct from the Forward programme, is closely linked.