Infantino to take pay-cut as Fifa slashes wages

Zurich: Gianni Infantino was facing his first nasty surprise as president of Fifa on Saturday night after it emerged he would earn much less than Sepp Blatter and would not even be its best-paid official.

It also appeared possible that Infantino, who had not been formally told his salary after winning Friday’s election, would have to take a pay-cut to run world football. Executive committee members, too, face a lowering of their remuneration under a wage structure that will be implemented at Fifa following sweeping reforms approved during the extraordinary congress at which Infantino swept to power. Those reforms will see the amount the organisation pays senior officials made public for the first time next month, including Blatter’s salary, which was said to be between £3.5 million and £7 million (Dh17 million and Dh35 million) a year depending on bonuses.

The governing body’s compensation committee has already fixed the salaries of Infantino and whoever is appointed as his secretary-general, ruling that the 45 year old should be paid less than his disgraced predecessor. It also decided Infantino should earn not earn as much as his new secretary-general, with the reforms having stripped the presidency of much of its executive functions and placed them in the hands of the Fifa administration.

That means both a lower basic salary for Infantino than Blatter and no bonuses either, unlike Jerome Valcke’s successor as secretary-general. Having been richly rewarded as Uefa general-secretary for helping almost treble its revenues, it therefore appears possible Infantino will end up worse off financially as Fifa president.

During his campaign, the Swiss promised to disclose his Uefa salary once the Fifa reforms were voted through, having insisted it was “much, much, much less” than a reported £4 million. Members of Infantino’s executive committee could also be about to feel the pinch, with the compensation committee expected to rule soon on their remuneration ahead of the body’s rebranding as the Fifa council.

That will see the 25-strong ExCo, the members of which currently receive £144,000 a year plus a daily allowance, swell to a 36-person council. There could be better news for Infantino when it comes to his manifesto pledge to more than double grants to national associations to £900,000 a year.

His election should allow Fifa to conclude its first new sponsorship deals since the last World Cup, with some contracts ready to be signed. Valcke, who was sacked last month, admitted last summer that the governing body had become toxic following the wave of arrests and convictions which plunged it into its worst ever crisis. One of the first sponsorships could see Qatar Airways confirmed as Fifa’s new airline partner in a deal that would include the 2022 tournament in the Gulf State. The company said after last year’s FBI-led dawn raids in Zurich that it was still in “advance internal discussions” about sponsoring the World Cup.

The corruption crisis has left Fifa £400 million behind its revenue target of £3.6 billion for the 2015-18 cycle, with the organisation paying as much as £7 million a month on legal fees alone. It has filled only 13 of its 37 sponsorship spots, although its efforts to improve that are likely to be boosted by Infantino becoming president instead of Shaikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa.

Infantino’s first official duty will be to open Fifa’s new £100 million museum, which will now include his name on a display of the organisation’s presidents. He will then stage a football match at Fifa’s headquarters before getting down to work and settling upon his preferred secretary-general. That individual would need to be approved by the ExCo, a meeting of which Infantino will chair for the first time next month.