Fifa crisis: Is it possible to defend Infantino’s World Cup sell-off plan? Infantino's plan for Fifa has drawna fierce backlashCrafting a defence of Infantino isn’t easy, but it is possible to assemble both a behavioural excuse and a commercial justification for the Fifa president’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup. One newspaper evocatively likened Gianni Infantino to Icarus at the weekend after his proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup melted in the face of global condemnation. The behavioural excuse for Infantino, then? The commercial justification for FifaThe headlines accompanying the Fifa president’s plan for outside stakes in a new competition vehicle have screamed that he was selling the World Cup (“heresy!”).