Philipp Lahm accuses Infantino of selling out the World Cup and robbing football of credibility

Philipp Lahm has launched a scathing public attack on FIFA president Gianni Infantino, accusing him of selling out the World Cup and surrounding himself with powerful figures for personal gain. Writing in the German newspaper Die Zeit, the former Bayern Munich and Germany captain alleged that Infantino’s closeness to Donald Trump raises serious questions about the integrity of football’s governing body.

“Most worrying is Gianni Infantino’s proximity to rulers like Donald Trump,” Lahm wrote. “There is a suspicion that they derive personal advantages from their offices. The World Cup is being sold. That robs football of credibility.”

The 42-year-old, who captained Germany to the 2014 World Cup, also criticised FIFA’s ticketing practices, accusing the organisation of “not giving honest information about the true demand” in order to maximise prices, and reiterated his opposition to a proposed bi-annual World Cup.

Lahm’s broader concern centres on what he sees as the widening gap between FIFA as an institution and the tournament it stages. “This results in the discomfort of the fans, for whom it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate FIFA on the one hand from the event on the other,” he wrote.

His criticism of Infantino is not new. During the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Lahm wrote in a column for RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland that the FIFA president “simply does not have integrity” and “takes advantage of the game.” He also pointed to the circumstances surrounding Qatar’s hosting rights as the moment FIFA’s credibility began to unravel. “It’s about the fact that the child fell into the well twelve years ago, when this tournament was awarded to Qatar under shady, strangest circumstances,” he wrote at the time.

In Die Zeit, Lahm extended that argument to the game’s wider cultural role. “This game is a perfect means for humanity to negotiate their coexistence,” he wrote. “But football is also tugged at by figures who have something else in mind, something shady.”

FIFA has not publicly responded to Lahm’s latest column.