Football Australia chair Anter Isaac dismisses recent Fifa ructions as ‘growing pains’

Football Australia chair Anter Isaac has played down concerns around the controversial World Cup privatisation push engineered by Gianni Infantino ahead of a meeting of Asian confederation officials in Tokyo this week.

Isaac’s sentiments come amid a global rebound in support for the embattled Fifa president, who at one stage appeared unlikely to be able to continue in his role following criticism led by officials in Europe and North America.

The Swiss lawyer now enjoys backing from South America, Africa and growing chunks of Asia, which would represent a bloc large enough for him to win March’s Fifa presidential election.

Continental powerbrokers are converging on Tokyo this week for the Asian Football Confederation congress. Fifa’s leadership and governance do not form part of the formal meeting agenda, but will be discussed by those present alongside the likelihood of January’s Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia going ahead.

Isaac, the most senior football official in Australia, was asked about the situation at Fifa in an episode of a little-known sports business You Tube channel earlier this month that has been viewed fewer than 200 times.

“We can look at it and be unsophisticated and say, what a mess,” he told Beyond the Game with Dillon and Rafael. “Or we can take a more responsible, mature view and say, you know what, these are growing pains.”

Isaac pointed out that Fifa’s revenues have exploded in recent World Cup cycles, and “systems and processes” at the organisation may not have kept pace. He was adamant that the intentions and motivations of people in football are “always in the best interests” of the sport.

“Maybe it’s not always aligned, but everyone involved in football really does want that, right? Everyone, at least in my experience and my interactions with them, that’s not even a question. So where has it become misaligned? Maybe it is in approach, maybe in communications and so forth.”

FA’s previous statement on the controversial proposal dubbed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), issued in August, called for “clear and credible action” but stopped short of calling for Infantino’s resignation.

It was broadly in line with a letter co-signed by Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa which demanded from Fifa “leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it”.

Since then Salman appears to have softened his stance against Infantino, instead calling for strengthened Fifa governance, as a growing bloc of Asian nations including Qatar and the UAE indicate support for the Fifa president.

Isaac said people will criticise bodies like Fifa, AFC and Uefa but will not have the same knowledge of those within the system.

“If I had the same information that most critics or the general public have, I would probably draw the same conclusions as them. But I don’t. I have a lot more information. I see a lot more that happens,” he said.

“So when I reflect on Fifa and major institutions in football, I see a lot of the incredible work that they do, that confederations do, even our association [does], that goes unnoticed in supporting and serving and servicing different stakeholders, especially the ones that need the greatest help.”

Uefa sent a letter to Fifa this week asking it to explain the proposed sale of 20% of its commercial rights under the now-abandoned FFE, the Folarin Balogun affair and relations with Donald Trump.

The missive follows last week’s meeting of the Fifa council in Zurich, the first since FFE came to light. Infantino listened to questions there, but declined to provide comprehensive answers, and called for questions in writing to be submitted before the next meeting in Doha on 16 December.

Isaac said it was “premature” to talk about whether he would support Infantino at next year’s election. While he noted he has his “own views” – and he wanted to avoid being openly critical himself – he sees criticism of Fifa’s president as largely about “process”.

“I’ve been encouraged that, right across the board, everyone is now focusing on that [process] with a view to, OK, let’s try and diagnose, what maybe could have been done differently or better, so that in future – and we codify it – so that in future we avoid it and what’s happened in this particular situation.”