Jordan Football Association President Ali bin Hussein didn't whisper this one — he put it on X for the world to read. FIFA, he alleges, told Jordan that endorsing Gianni Infantino "would go a long way to helping our FA out" after months of stonewalling on multiple requests for assistance. His response was blunt: "We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now."
That's a direct accusation of political coercion levelled at the most powerful man in world football. FIFA has been contacted for comment and has yet to respond publicly.
A list of grievances that's been building for months
This isn't just about a grudge over an election. Bin Hussein laid out a string of concrete complaints that paint a picture of a small association being ground down by an organisation that claims to serve everyone equally.
- Jordan fans paid high ticket prices and were still denied visas to attend the World Cup in the United States.
- The FA has been waiting since December for prize money owed for reaching the Arab Cup final in Qatar — a FIFA-organised tournament.
- Jordan faced U.S. tax liabilities on World Cup participation that teams based in Canada and Mexico did not — costs that ate directly into player and staff payments.
"The money our team should receive for having reached the final has not been delivered yet, while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve," Bin Hussein wrote. Hard to argue with the math on that one.
Jordan made history by qualifying for the World Cup for the first time. They went out in the group stage, but the milestone was real. The reward, apparently, less so.
Infantino's position is shakier than his public face suggests
This comes at a genuinely difficult moment for the FIFA president. His proposal to sell a minority stake in the World Cup's commercial operations collapsed after confederations and national associations rejected it — a significant public humiliation. FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom and Arsene Wenger both distanced themselves from the plan. The deadline Infantino imposed came and went.
Bin Hussein put it plainly: "There is a problem with the leadership." When your own Secretary General is stepping back and a national FA president is using the word blackmail on social media, that's not a communications problem — it's a governance one.
Whether FIFA responds substantively or retreats into silence will say plenty about how seriously it takes the complaints of smaller associations. So far, silence is what Jordan has been getting.
