Infantino's Pele Stadium Initiative, A Monument To Folly

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Infantino’s call for Pelé stadiums everywhere is a monument to folly | Jonathan Wilson

Fifa president has utterly failed to grasp how football allows communities to celebrate their local heroes

www.theguardian.com

There are times when you wonder whether Gianni Infantino has ever interacted with an actual human being, somebody who might tell him how ridiculous he sounds or do something about his white trainers. Maybe this is how he has always been, gabbling away in the language of the football wonk, involuntarily spewing out inane statistics and ludicrous proposals.

Even by the standards of the kneejerk populism of modern political figures – Build a wall! Tax cuts! Universal … err… maths! – Infantino’s suggestion that every country should name a stadium after Pelé was absurd even if Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau have fallen into line. Perhaps he was paying some sort of tribute to Pelé by saying something ridiculous he thought local media wanted to hear.

How exactly would this work? Would the football associations of each country hold a grand draw to decide which club would be forced to change? What sort of jurisdiction does he imagine football federations have? This isn’t Stalin changing the name of St Petersburg after Lenin’s death. Why would any country want a stadium named after a great from elsewhere? Good luck getting that to catch on in Buenos Aires.

And what of Brazilians, and Santos fans in particular? Might they not feel that they have some sort of ownership of their legend? Who can imagine where Infantino, who lives in Doha, might have got the idea that things can be changed at a moment’s notice on dictatorial whim?