{"id":572065,"date":"2026-07-28T12:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T12:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/572065\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T12:46:08","slug":"la-liga-boss-brands-infantino-post-pathetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/572065\/","title":{"rendered":"La Liga boss brands Infantino post ‘pathetic’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gianni Infantino’s extraordinary Instagram post accusing FIFA\u2019s critics of spreading “hate” has been dismissed as “pathetic” by La Liga president Javier Tebas.<\/p>\n

The FIFA president\u2019s 15-page message came before confirmation on Monday that Democrats in the United States Congress were investigating him amid what they described as “mounting evidence of potential corruption and a possible quid pro quo between FIFA and the Trump Administration”.<\/p>\n

Infantino’s social media post<\/a> had advised those “spending their time and energy hating us” to “meditate, pray, or watch a football match”, drawing a scathing response from Tebas.<\/p>\n

“Gianni Infantino has written a pathetic message on his Instagram account and on the accounts of @FIFAcom,” Tebas (below) wrote on his own X account.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“No one disputes that football is emotion and unity. But transparency, good governance, and accountability are never hate; they are an obligation.<\/p>\n

“Strong institutions do not discredit those who ask questions; they answer the questions. And a reflection, Gianni: when a leader dedicates an entire message to disqualifying those who exercise legitimate scrutiny, it\u2019s inevitable to wonder\u2026 why precisely now?<\/p>\n

“Is there something that explains such a defensive tone? Is something happening that we don\u2019t know about?”<\/p>\n

\"EAST<\/p>\n

The US House Judiciary Committee has called Infantino before it to examine what it describes as “FIFA\u2019s sustained campaign to secure special favours from President Trump (above, r) \u2013 including the dismissal of high-profile corruption cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars tied to FIFA \u2013 while American consumers were gouged by exorbitant World Cup ticket prices”.<\/p>\n

The letter cited the introduction of the “hilariously fake” FIFA Peace Prize which was awarded to President Trump last December<\/a>, the renting of office space at Trump Tower as examples of acts designed “to induce President Trump and his Administration to make decisions in FIFA\u2019s favour”.<\/p>\n

The letter requests documents and information be sent to the Committee by 10pm on 9 August.<\/p>\n

FIFA has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

\n

Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gianni Infantino’s extraordinary Instagram post accusing FIFA\u2019s critics of spreading “hate” has been dismissed as “pathetic” by La…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-572065","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\/572065","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=572065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}