On the eve of the opening game in Mexico City, Infantino, who also gave a strident defence of ticket prices, said: “It was unfortunate what happened with the referee from Somalia.<\/p>\n
“Again, we don’t control everything. We tried to discuss, we speak. Sometimes it\u2019s good as well just to chill, relax.<\/p>\n
“We try to solve everything, (but) screaming and shouting, that\u2019s the opposite of finding a solution.<\/p>\n
“We try always to find solutions (but) we are not the kings of the world who can rule over governments, police forces. We are an organisation with the means we have to make as much as possible.”<\/p>\n
The BBC pushed him on his comment about “chilling”, with Infantino adding: “In 2035 I think the Women\u2019s World Cup will be in (the) UK.<\/p>\n
“Would you find it normal that FIFA would dictate to the British Government who to let in the country and who not to let in the country? I don\u2019t know, maybe you find it normal.<\/p>\n
“Our world is a very aggressive world and security goes above everything. You need to respect the decisions.<\/p>\n
“When is say ‘chill\u2019, I don\u2019t mean \u2018chill and do nothing\u2019, I mean to trust us.<\/p>\n
“We always try to make the situation as positive as possible and find solutions. Sometimes we manage, sometimes we do not.”<\/p>\n
Infantino clearly expected questions around the price of tickets to come up and spoke at length about it in his opening remarks.<\/p>\n
He defended the entry price of 60 US dollars (\u20ac51) \u2013 which he said covered 130,000 tickets out of around 6.5 million on sale \u2013 saying that compared favourably with American sports at the play-off phase.<\/p>\n
He added: “If we were like everyone else in football is now, selling our TV rights on pay TV like everyone else, then billions of people wouldn’t have access.<\/p>\n
“We will generate four times more revenues and we will give the tickets probably for free. They will still enter the black market and the secondary market and be sold for thousands of dollars. We have to strike a balance.<\/p>\n
“It is my statutory responsibility to generate the income which allows FIFA to invest in all of these (211 member) countries.”<\/p>\n
“If we were like everyone else in football is now, selling our TV rights on pay TV like everyone else, then billions of people wouldn’t have access.”<\/p>\n
He also said he was “relaxed” about legal challenges to FIFA\u2019s approach to pricing, saying the organisation had sought extensive legal advice before going to market.<\/p>\n
FIFA has faced negative headlines around Iran this week, with some of its federation officials denied US visas and the federation claiming FIFA had revoked an allocation of tickets given to it for its matches, which start with a game against New Zealand in Los Angeles on Monday.<\/p>\n
Infantino hailed FIFA\u2019s work in getting Iran to play in the finals, which seemed unlikely in the extreme after the US and Israel began bombing Iran in February and Iran responded by attacking US military bases in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
“I don\u2019t know who else would have been able to ensure (their participation) in these circumstances,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"trump\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0024786d-614.jpg\"\/)
\nDonald Trump said US ensuring “the right people” come into the country<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, United States president Donald Trump said his country was working to ensure “the right people” could come in to the country.<\/p>\n
Trump was asked about the Artan case at a White House briefing on Wednesday and said: “We’re working on it very closely to make sure the right people come into our country.”<\/p>\n
Reports have cited a US official claiming Artan had suspected links to terror organisations, an allegation Artan has not yet responded to.<\/p>\n
FIFA has faced criticism for staging the World Cup in a country with such hard-line immigration policies, but its president Gianni Infantino said on Wednesday his organisation was not “king of the world” and had to abide by decisions taken by governments in host countries.<\/p>\n
Trump said this was “the most successful World Cup (FIFA) has ever had”, adding: “They have never sold tickets at that level.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s amazing. You don\u2019t think of soccer in this country. I spoke to Gianni this morning and he said there\u2019s never been anything close to what\u2019s happened.”<\/p>\n
![\"FIFA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/002475f4-614.jpg\"\/)
\nWatch every game of the FIFA 2026 World Cup live on RT\u00c9 with highlights on RT\u00c9 Sport digital platforms and live blogs on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n
He recalled a visit to see Iran play in Turkey in March, and added: “I promised them they would come and if I had to go with a bus to Tehran, I would do that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIFA president Gianni Infantino urged people to “chill” and put their faith in his organisation that they were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-493391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}