🇨🇦🌎 Victor Montagliani's delicate dance
Can the Concacaf president keep backing Infantino as the FIFA president gets closer and closer to Trump?
Who runs soccer?
Increasingly, the answer is FIFA president Gianni Infantino, whose remit as the executive of the governing body for soccer1 continues to expand. But even with all that power coming from pulling off successful World Cup tournaments, cashing television rights checks and bringing on sponsors, he needs help.
Increasingly, it seems, Infantino is finding partners not among fans of the sport or even the ex-lawyers, insurance agents, investors and others who make up the sportocrat class that runs the sport. Instead, he has found it useful to cozy up to actual government leaders, the Order of Friendship he received from Russian president Vladimir Putin one such trinket accumulated from a relationship he’d invested in ahead of the 2018 Men’s World Cup.
Perhaps that’s why he decided it was more important to get a little more time in with Donald Trump during the U.S. President’s four-day swing through the Middle East rather than be on time to the annual FIFA Congress in Paraguay. His tardiness reportedly infuriated delegates from UEFA, many of whom staged a walk out or simply left the event early, according to various media reports.
At one stage, reports were that the entire FIFA Council walked out.
That piqued my attention since Concacaf president Victor Montagliani is an ex officio member of the council and has regularly appeared alongside Infantino during site visits and press tours ahead of the 2026 World Cup taking place in North America. In the end, it appears Montagliani did not stage any sort of protest, telling reporters “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Whether it had anything to do with his loyalty or not, Montagliani came away from the council with a prize: The next meeting will be in Vancouver, weeks before the 2026 World Cup.
The Concacaf president’s enthusiasm at bringing the tentpole event to his home province was evident as he announced the news in a video, arm wrapped around Canada Soccer President Peter Augruso.
Why shouldn’t it be? While Montagliani’s job is to work for every member of the Concacaf region, a message surely driven home to him during his swing through the Caribbean prior to the FIFA Council meeting, he has legitimate passion for the sport and for its continued growth in his home country.
Logistically, it makes sense for the heads of FIFA’s member associations to come together in a World Cup host city, and Vancouver has the international flight connections and hotels of a certain standard needed to pull off the event.
Yet, the president increasingly is doing a delicate dance. The budding bromance between Trump and Infantino could lead to some tough decisions for Montagliani when it comes to backing the boss or standing up for his nation.
While he has shrugged off the possibility of political tensions dampening the grandeur of the 2026 tournament, telling The Province “We’re always dealing with governments. There’s always that aspect. So there’s really nothing new to this one. It hasn’t been a problem — so far. We hear and see the talk on TV all the time, but for us, organizing that hasn’t been an issue.”
Even in that April interview, however, he left open the prospect that things could change going forward. That’s the nature of politics, after all. Trump continues to try to goad the United States’ northern neighbor with talk of statehood, helping push Liberal party candidate Mark Carney to the prime minister seat after the party trailed the Conservatives by 25 points in polling prior to Trump’s inauguration.
It is difficult to imagine Infantino and Carney, a staid ex-economist very much made in the mold of traditional politicians. striking up the same sort of friendship Trump and Infantino are forging.
“As a Canadian obviously I’m in line with my compatriots at home,” Montagliani told The Times last week. Canada becoming a state is “never going to happen, and my prime minister was very clear about that. From a professional standpoint, it’s just white noise.”
Maybe so, but the background noise is going to be harder to ignore if it keeps getting louder.
While Montagliani isn’t in line with everything Infantino suggests, it’s clear he can see the benefit of a good partnership. As the FIFA president increasingly cozies up with the U.S. president, though, the Concacaf executive may have some thoughts about reigning in executive power - and not just when it comes to the occupant of the White House.
For instance, when it comes to deciding World Cup hosts, Montagliani has seen his region benefit not only from the choice of the 2026 men’s tournament but also for the de facto decision putting the 2031 women’s competition back in the U.S.
Yet, he insisted in The Times interview that, “it shouldn’t be the FIFA president’s decision alone, he has a board, he has a council.”
“But I think the old way we used to do it where people just waste their money and then all these shenanigans happen. That’s ridiculous,” he continued. “Let’s get away from that.
“Let’s become a proper business. Let’s have an event management strategy so that we’re properly rotating it, everybody gets a crack at it.”
Montagliani has made “Football First” the bywords of his tenure leading Concacaf. At times, the confederation has delivered on that promise.
Often, however, business still plays an outsized role in his calculations. Even as a proud Canadian, he refuses to budge the Gold Cup from the lucrative terrain of the United States while other confederations sensibly rotate their continental championships.
He also has been happy to jump into global affairs on his own, leading the confederation into a partnership with the PIF, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Some of this is the nature of running a confederation, but as Infantino continues to court the friendship and favor of some of the world’s most ruthless politicians, Montagliani increasingly will need to show where he stands not just as Concacaf president but also as a Canadian and as a human being.
If Montagliani wants to see global soccer become a soccer business, he must be wary of a lesson that even a TV businessman like Trump will know: You have to be careful who you do business with, as you often end up looking just like your partners.
At least the organized version most of us watch
Montagliani is walking a tightrope. He’s already not well trusted amongst most Canadian supporters because of his involvement in the Canadian Soccer Business deal (whether right or wrong). But he’s in his post by the grace of Infantino who is either in Trump’s backpocket by design or out of necessity to make sure 2026 runs smoothly. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next twelve months. I’m personally not a fan of his but not sure what else he’s supposed to do.
Tangential, but, if Concacaf were to rotate it, would the Caribbean countries collectively have the facilities to be able to host a Gold Cup? Cuba, Jamaica, T&T… maybe Puerto Rico?