Infantino accused of blackmail by Jordan FA chief in brutal FIFA criticism

Jordan football association president Prince Ali Al Hussein has shockingly claimed he was told during the World Cup that his nation would benefit if he endorsed Gianni Infantino. The FIFA president has endured a whirlwind few weeks with his controversial plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors scrapped following severe backlash.

Several governing body's slammed his proposal and a member of one nation's FA that was at the World Cup has gone one step further by suggesting blackmail attempts were made. Prince Ali also revealed Jordan are yet to be paid for reaching the final of a FIFA event alongside several other issues.

Part of his X post read: "For months, FIFA has been refusing to help us on any of these or other matters- until it was verbally communicated to me during the World Cup that if I endorsed Infantino it would go a long way to helping our FA out.

"We pride ourselves in Jordan in upholding ethical values. We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now. But the whole situation amounts to blackmail and we refuse to give in to that."

His full message stated: "There is no shortage of issues regarding FIFA. Let me start by clarifying what some of these are from an FA perspective, in particular that of Jordan going into a World Cup for the first time. We are a small country with a minimal budget for our FA and had to deal with enormous hurdles.

"First, getting our fans into the USA: not all were granted VISAS, even though they had tickets -which we also know were sold at exorbitant prices.

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"Secondly, we are being taxed by the US govt through FIFA for our participation. Money that should go to players and staff.

"This was not the case for those who played and set up camp in Canada and Mexico. But we happened to be in the USA so now we face these huge costs in taxes for having participated.

"Thirdly we have been waiting for reward money for our players since December for the Arab cup in Qatar, which is a FIFA event.

"The money our team should receive for having reached the final has not been delivered yet, while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve."

Infantino performed a hefty U-turn on his hopes for the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) with all plans scrapped. Pressure on his job remains significant with FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom blasting him in a leaked email.

Arsene Wenger later issued a public statement, outlining the responsibilties of his role within FIFA in an attempt to distance himself from Infantino.

UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation spoke out against his proposal with the former also threatening legal action.

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