Human rights expert: FIFA's Infantino and Trump made for each other
"Infantino behaves like a sun king at FIFA. And nobody does anything against it. You can only watch it with amazement," Schenk told the t-online portal in an interview published on the eve of Saturday's start of the FIFA Club World Cup in the US.
Schenk is a former member of FIFA's human rights advisory body and chairs Transparency International's working group on sports.
She said that Infantino and Trump were made for each other concerning their claims to power.
""These are two men who always push themselves to the fore. To describe them as extroverted is an understatement," she said.
Schenk said that Trump is using the month-long Club World Cup starting on Saturday and next year's World Cup, which the US hosts together with Canada and Mexico, for his own interests.
"Trump knows how to utilise sport for populist purposes. That helps him in certain voter and demographic groups. As his poll ratings are currently plummeting, he perhaps needs this even more urgently," she said.
Schenk said that Trump exaggerates FIFA and "flatters Infantino's ego."
Infantino was an invited guest at Trump's inauguration and last month accompanied him on a trip to the Middle East, which controversially made him arrive late for the FIFA Congress in Paraguay.
Schenk said that Infantino leads FIFA in a way not even his predecessor Joseph Blatter would have done but said that "he only gets this power because everyone is giving it to him and nobody is opposing it."
Schenk also said that Infantino's closeness with Trump would not change the political situation in the US, such as Human Rights Watch calling on Infantino to put pressure on Trump.
"So far it has been the other way around: the US has been instrumentalised to put pressure on football and Infantino to change things in other countries," Schenk said.
"But I'm of the opinion: please sort things out in your own country first and don't ask FIFA to change the American president now, nobody else can do that either."
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