Fifa’s nowhere man Infantino is lost in this bonfire of greed, vanity and power

Fifa is expected to rake in a record 6.3bn from this messiest and most divisive of all World Cups...and meanwhile the global game is spiralling out of control

- Barney Ronay Doha

Today I feel... largely invisible. Today I feel like a boggle-eyed despot-groupie. Today I feel like essence of human avarice distilled through a series of filters, poured into a dark suit and presented on stage looking like a discredited small-town mayor with a secret. Today I feel like I should, for the sake of world football, start to get a grip on this chaotic Fifa World Cup.

It is hard to know whether Gianni Infantino feels any of these things right now. It is 10 days since Infantino delivered his opening press conference speech, his Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock moment, his I Have a Really Horrendous And Deluded Dream.

For all its hallucinogenic qualities, that speech suggested Fifa’s president intended to run this World Cup under strict standing orders. However, in the days since, the most notable aspect of Fifa’s presence at its own super-show is its diffidence.

Infantino has gone into stealth mode. Fifa itself has seemed marginalised. An organisation defined by control-freakery, its tendency to assume quasi-governmental powers while hovering over its host like an alien tripod, has gone quiet.

Even worse, this has happened just as fires have begun to break out across this thing. A cast ranging from an angry Carlos Queiroz, to the massed brain-shouts of social media, to Infantino himself, has continued to debate the rise of the global south and the decadence of Europe, as expressed via World Cup group standings.

Mohammed bin Salman continues to circle the feast. Antony Blinken has used Wales versus the USA as a platform to present to the world Uncle Sam shaking hands with its keenest current Middle Eastern ally.

And right now Qatar 2022 feels less like the usual soft-power stage, more like a kind of realtime super-Davos, Yalta witha K-pop soundtrack. Is this really the moment for a closed-circle monarchy to start driving the world’s greatest sporting spectacle?