Commentary: Football’s enduring controversies show why journalism matters

THE WORK BEHIND THE FIFA HEADLINES

Given the wider criticism of Infantino’s proximity to the US Administration – in the build up to the World Cup (see the December 2025 FIFA Peace Prize), during the tournament (the US president personally called Infantino to rescind a US player’s red card), and after (one of the leading figures in the FFE scheme was Joshua Kushner, brother of the US president’s son-in-law) – scrutiny will surely continue.

Journalists don’t give up easily. They will keep probing the secrecy around FIFA’s affairs because it is the public’s right to know how, and in whose interest, football’s future is being designed and where the game’s US$ billions in revenue are ending up. 

Yet almost none of that persistence made the headlines. The reporting that brought the plan to light, much like the work that will keep the story alive, goes almost entirely unnoticed. 

News organisations are very good at telling other people’s stories, yet we have not been even remotely as good at telling our own. That is one reason why, on Sep 28 each year, news organisations across the globe come together to mark World News Day – to make visible the work that is poured into every story. 

The FIFA investigation is a case in point. Having spent most of my life in journalism, I know how much effort goes into such a story, and how rarely audiences get to see behind the curtain. 

Someone had to notice, investigate, verify and then publish the facts. Journalists have been doing this kind of diligent work on FIFA for years, one investigation building on the last. It’s what makes a level of scrutiny like this possible.