Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with LMP.
Sometimes, the hero you wind up with is not the hero you wanted, nor the hero you expected, but is always the hero you needed.
Yes, I am talking about UEFA, Europe’s governing soccer body.
Sure, UEFA has had its share of corruption scandals over the years, and gave us both Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, alongside a sex pest women’s coach, but sometimes you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Yesterday, UEFA announced that it would boycott all FIFA events, including the upcoming women’s World Cup, if Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell states in the WC to a private equity fund headed up by Jared Kushner’s brother, Josh.
The decision of UEFA's 55 members means that major nations including Germany, France, England and world champions Spain would not participate in the men's or women's World Cups as long as FIFA's proposal remains active.
"UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions," UEFA said in a statement.
While Congress (and 99 percent of US corporations) has done next to nothing to stop Trump from grifiting billions while in the Oval Office, it seems that UEFA has seen enough “deals” between Infantino and those in the Trump orbit, and has said “no more/no mas/pas plus/nicht mehr.” Maybe it takes one unabashedly corrupt organization to recognize another.
Infantino revealed plans earlier this week for the sale of a stake in FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) that would raise $20 billion in exchange for influence over future World Cups including broadcasting and commercial deals linked to the tournament.
The effort is being bankrolled by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law.
It marks Infantino's latest effort to align with those in the orbit of Trump: by creating the FIFA peace prize, letting Trump intervene in a process that led to United States forward Folarin Balogun playing at the World Cup and now trying to lock in Joshua Kushner's investment firm to a 12-year ownership deal with the Switzerland-based not-for-profit soccer body.
And if that wasn’t enough, CONCACAF, the governing body of soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, joined the rejection of Infantino’s plan, though they stopped short of joining in the boycott.
If you don’t understand why CONCACAF deciding the deal with Kushner’s firm is a bridge too far even for them, here’s a quick primer:
In May of 2015, 14 people, including two former FIFA Vice Presidents and former CONCACAF Presidents, were charged with “racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offenses, in connection with the defendants’ participation in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer.” Basically, CONCACAF was a cesspool of bribery and favoritism for decades under former President Jack Warner and Secretary General Chuck Blazer. CONCACAF also didn’t pay taxes for like six years. It was all bad.
CONCACAF and UEFA standing together to oppose backdoor dealings with the Trump Family is sort of like North Korea and Russia banding together to say, “Hey dude, that’s, like, super-fascist. Count us out.”
"Some things are simply too important to sell," UEFA's statement added. "The FIFA World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale."
UEFA added that the lack of "meaningful consultation" over the FIFA plans was a further issue, which they regard as a "failure" by the world governing body.
"This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA's duty as the custodian of world football," said UEFA, where Infantino was a longtime staffer and its CEO-like general secretary when he was first elected to lead FIFA in 2016.
In a couple of years where it’s been maddening to watch group after group capitulate to Trump and his goons (looking at you, colleges and universities), seeing the international community come together to say “no” to funneling even more cash to America’s worst actors is such a relief, even if it only is over football. Maybe other organizations will take courage from this small act of resistance.
As for Infantino, calls for him to step down as FIFA President have been growing louder since the start of the World Cup, and only intensified in the wake of Trump’s presence at the Final and Infantino’s blubbering, sycophantic letter to the Argentinian delegation, who are currently under investigation by FIFA, after they behaved like complete jackasses for the entire tournament. I never thought a team could make me turn on Lionel Messi, but here I am.
For his part, Infantino is offering every country a $10 billion package if they agree to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has issued a letter to every national association offering the incentive of a $10 billion total package should they agree to his plan to effectively sell stakes in future World Cups to private investors, multiple reports have revealed. Failure to accept these terms in the next six weeks would result in investment of about a quarter of that sum.
I’m guessing that entire “package” doesn’t come in cash, and that, like the promises that hosting international sports events will bring wealth and employment to local economies, this promise will also prove to be extremely flexible.
The writing has been on the wall for Infantino ever since that stupid FIFA Peace Prize he created specially for Trump, along with the racist and xenophobic behavior the US was allowed to engage in during the tournament. And having Andrew Giuliani heading up the US delegation can’t be helping international relations.
The first test of the potential boycott will happen in September in Poland, where the women’s U20 World Cup will be played. Because Poland is part of UEFA, we don’t even know if the country would still be willing to host the tourney. All of this coming to a head before qualifying for the Women’s World Cup in 2027 kicks into high gear is incredibly unfortunate for the women’s game, and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel like UEFA is willing to sacrifice the women’s WC to defeat Infantino and, less directly, his relationship with Trump.
But I’ll worry about that if we’re still in this position in the Fall. For now, it feels great for someone to say “no” to the never-ending grift that accompanies the White House team everywhere they go.
In other news: Kathy Ruemmler, who never met a gift from Jeffrey Epstein she didn’t accept, has thoughts on victim credibility; Trump overrode FEMA to turn down disaster aid in blue states; the State Dep’t embarrasses the US again; and The High Note.
Here we go.
Once again, I was less-than-thrilled with the ads I was offered today (I only run ads on Fridays), which were mostly for AI products and betting markets. Ad revenue helps keep LMP afloat. Independent media is so important, given (gestures around wildly to everything), and it’s impossible to do this work without financial support. You can upgrade to a paid monthly plan leave a tip, or even just share this post on social media or via email. Every penny helps keep the lights on here.
I have some thoughts on Kathy Ruemmler
I’ve written about Jeffrey Epstein pal and former White House and Goldman Sachs counsel Kathy Ruemmler before, and I’ve definitely ranted about her on social media. Observe.
Ruemmler has insisted, repeatedly, that she did not know Epstein was trafficking young women during their friendship, which begs the question, “Who did she think all those young girls were?” Though I suppose it’s easy to overlook an international sex trafficking ring when you’re being continually wined and dined by a billionaire, even while giving him advice on how to respond to the allegations against him.
It turns out that Ruemmler has some opinions about the quality of the witnesses who came forward to expose Epstein. Specifically, Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April.
A former White House counsel and former general counsel of Goldman Sachs, who has faced scrutiny over her past ties to Jeffrey Epstein, told a House committee this month that some of the allegations made by one of his most prominent accusers “lacked inherent credibility”, according to newly released transcripts.
Kathryn Ruemmler’s name appeared thousands of times in records related to Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, that were released earlier this year by the US Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
I invite everyone to read this excerpt from Giuffre’s book, which is excellent. I find Giuffre’s account of how she was groomed by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to be far more credible than Ruemmler’s claims that she didn’t know about Epstein’s crimes.
There’s a special place in hell for women who punch down on other women, especially children.
Every allegation is a projection
Hey, remember back in 2024 when the Biden administration was being falsely accused of slow-walking FEMA relief to red states during Hurricane Helene? Trump has turned that odious allegation into policy, because every accusation MAGA makes is an admission.
President Donald Trump overruled his own agencies when he denied disaster aid for four Democratic-led states this month.
Emails between state and federal officials obtained by POLITICO along with more than 150 pages of documents submitted to FEMA by three states — New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — provide new details about Trump’s low rate of approving disaster aid for his political adversaries. He also denied a request by New York after administration officials verified that it had met federal standards for approval, according to state officials.
Trump’s rejections came after regional offices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and NOAA determined that the states met government thresholds for receiving aid following a record-breaking snowstorm in February.
What are we paying taxes for, if not bailing out fellow Americans after natural disasters strike?
Get your paper bags ready…
Once again, the Trump administration has embarrassed the US on an epic and international scale.
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screenshots and posted them online.
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A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The company said it was investigating the report.
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The map showed Nigeria, where the U.S. has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara. Mozambique, which is in southeastern Africa, was relocated to the Horn of Africa, while Ivory Coast in West Africa was placed on the other side of the continent.
Gawd.
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday at only 56. He seemed ever-present in all the memorials for Shane MacGowan in England and Ireland, and it’s hard to believe he, too, is gone. RIP Glen, and thanks for all the great tunes.
Have a great weekend!
Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
