The Gianni Infantino supervillain arc has taken another turn for the ridiculous. His notoriety was cemented at the last World Cup in Qatar, where viral speeches still pop up (the “today I feel gay” address being the enduring meme). And while highly concerning at the time, it isn’t a scratch on what’s been brewing over the past few weeks.
Infantino wants FIFA to spin the World Cup and its other events into a new commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise, value it at around $20 billion, and sell up to a 20% stake to private investors. The fund lined up to lead the charge is Thrive Eternal, founded by Joshua Kushner, younger brother of Trump son-in-law Jared. FIFA has dangled $20 million-plus sweeteners in front of each of its 211 member associations to wave it through, and set them a deadline of 19 September to decide.
It is of course nothing short of pure hubris and so brazen that he’s barely trying to disguise his role and motivations. This is the same guy who appeared roughly nine minutes into many a World Cup match just gone, then again in the second half, leading up to his grand moment in the final, cosying up to Trump, having a right old jolly. A bizarre tone to strike on the world stage when you’re planning on major and controversial reforms to the World Cup.
It doesn’t take an expert to tell the private-equity-ification in play with the express aim of squeezing more money from it will not go down well. Infantino is breaking every rule, which begs the question: is the aim even to pass this thing, or is there something longer-term at play? Or has Trump blown so much smoke up his ar*e that he can no longer see the wood for the trees?
It must’ve been sobering when FIFA’s own people made a public point against these plans. Carlos Cordeiro, a senior adviser to Infantino, resigned in disgust this week, calling it “a bad deal for football” and pointing out that FIFA, sitting on $15 billion of revenue from the last cycle, doesn’t remotely need the cash.
And the plans, in all likelihood, will not go through. The bodies whose votes Infantino requires have lined up to shred it. UEFA and its 55 members have not only rejected the proposal but threatened to boycott FIFA competitions outright. Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation have come out against it too.
It feels like the European Super League all over again. The money men ruling football are eagerly trying to push the sport to a more American model - far more commercialisation at every turn. The only shred of hope with all this is their comms have been so bad they haven’t stood a chance. But clearly the impetus is alive and well, and that is a very real worry.
A viral X post this week put a name to a phenomenon which has been increasingly prominent since the dawn of TikTok: UK Poo.
Although mostly rap, UK Poo is less a music genre and more a catch-all term for synthetic sounding bedroom productions whose questionable quality walks the line between sincere and tongue-in-cheek - spawning countless memes.
The response to the original post revealed that there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of this emerging trend running the full gauntlet between a bit of self-aware fun and genuine (usually delulu) attempts to launch a music career.
Since Justin Bieber became a global superstar via YouTube, a fairytale has emerged of DIY artists self-publishing demos and achieving mainstream fame. Rebecca Black became a high-profile early example of the pitfalls of trying to manufacture a career via social media (although she’s done pretty well in the end!) but broadly, this is a fairytale which has come true enough across the past 15 years to persist – it’s even been galvanised by TikTok, the star chamber for artists such as Lil Nas X.
The problem is these outliers have given subsequent generations the hope that they too can become superstars; much in the same way that early Twitter made everyone a journalist, and Instagram made everyone a model, TikTok seems to be driving a belief that everyone can make music. UK Poo is a cultural moment and undeniably entertaining, but it’s also a reminder that, whilst the technological marvels of our age allow us to almost anything, they don’t necessarily allow us to do it well.
Elon Musk spent 85 minutes with The Economist’s editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes this week discussing nothing less than the future of civilisation.
It is, at times, a genuinely interesting conversation. Musk predicts AI will surpass the combined intelligence of humanity within five years and usher in an age of such extraordinary abundance that money may become largely meaningless. He repeats his long-held warning that AI poses an existential threat and even suggests he may need to bury the hatchet with OpenAI’s Sam Altman for the good of the world.
Then the conversation turns to politics.
Asked about his time leading DOGE, he becomes combative and insists “zero people died” from the cuts he made to aid programmes. From there, the conversation moved to Europe, where he repeated his belief that Britain is heading towards civil war, claimed the media has misrepresented the far right and suggested there will be a “reckoning”. After the interview aired, Musk slipped out of his role as a visionary into something more familiar – an angry middle-aged man on the internet. He turned to name-calling Beddoes on X as an “unthinking NPC” and a “traitor to the West”.
That extraordinary gap between the first hour of the interview and what came after has become the defining feature of Musk’s public persona. It’s difficult to reconcile the man imagining humanity’s future among the stars with the one spending his afternoons immersed in culture wars on X.
Musk wants the mantle of civilisation’s great futurist, but he also seems unwilling to retire from his side career as the internet’s most powerful reply guy. As Beddoes herself observed, the interview revealed the strange “caricature” at the heart of Musk’s public persona - a man dreaming of the next frontier stuck in the comment sections of the current one.
In May, Jonathan Andic was arrested on suspicion of homicide in connection with the death of his father, Isak Andic, founder of fashion retailer Mango, who fell to his death while hiking near Barcelona.
Jonathan gave conflicting accounts of where he was when his father fell. Further evidence has since emerged that, leading up to his death, there was a dispute between the children and their father over inheritance. The ongoing investigation continues to uncover family secrets and leaves the public speculating about the son’s guilt and raises questions about others close to the family, including a therapist who was counselling the family ahead of the incident.
Before we turn on our TVs and watch a Netflix documentary on this case, there is some seriously harmful publicity that should be taken into consideration for the Mango brand. As more stories appear on the news about the case and more social media videos start emerging on speculation and gossip – Mango must work to control the narrative.
Jonathan has stepped down as vice-chairman of the clothing store, distancing the retailer from the scandal. Mango will need to steer away from any association with the ongoing investigation and must now put its products and brands front and centre of its campaigns, highlighting positive stories, new collaborations and every success they can lay their hands on - in tragic and macabre circumstances like this, being a faceless product line may just save the brand.
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