The president of the Jordan Football Association, Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, has escalated his attack on the president of world football's governing body FIFA, Gianni Infantino, accusing him of "blackmail" and of pressuring the Jordanian federation into backing his re-election campaign. It is the latest chapter of a crisis besieging the FIFA president after the failure of his controversial investment project.
Infantino is under mounting pressure. He was forced to withdraw the "FIFA Forward Enterprise" project, which had aimed to open the door for private-sector investors to buy into the commercial rights of FIFA tournaments, the World Cup foremost among them, after a wave of criticism and threats to boycott the competitions. The English and Welsh federations also pulled their support for his re-election.
Writing on the platform X, Prince Ali said the Jordanian federation faced numerous problems during its first historic World Cup participation, stressing that FIFA offered no help in resolving them.
Thousands of Jordanian fans struggled to obtain entry visas to the United States despite holding match tickets, he explained, while also pointing to the significant rise in ticket prices.
He added that the Jordanian national team was forced to pay taxes to the US government via FIFA because it held its camp inside the United States, money that was supposed to go to the players and the technical staff. Teams that camped in Canada or Mexico did not bear the same burdens.
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Several months on, the prince revealed, Jordan's players have still not received the financial bonuses for their second-place finish in the Arab Cup 2025, which FIFA organised in Qatar. He hit out at the international federation's talk of its huge financial reserves.
Prince Ali accused the FIFA leadership of linking assistance for the Jordanian federation to a declaration of support for Infantino in the upcoming elections. "For months FIFA refused to help us with these matters, until I was informed verbally during the World Cup that my endorsement of Infantino would greatly help in resolving the Jordanian federation's problems," he said.
He added: "We in Jordan take pride in our moral values. We have not supported him before, and we certainly will not support him now, because what happened amounts to 'blackmail', and we will not yield to such pressures."
Prince Ali ranks among Infantino's most prominent past rivals, having stood for the FIFA presidency in the 2016 elections after challenging former president Sepp Blatter in 2015.
Beyond his presidency of the Jordan Football Association, Prince Ali is the president and founder of the West Asian Football Federation, which comprises 12 national federations, among them Iraq, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.