Fatma Samoura steps down as FIFA Secretary General. There’s no reason to regret that. There is no reason to celebrate Samoura for anything. The woman from Senegal is a royally paid mascot for FIFA dictator Gianni Infantino. She always covered up his dirty dealings.
Award ceremony World Cup 2019. (Screenshot FIFA TV)
Four weeks before the start of the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, FIFA announced its separation from the long-standing general secretary Fatma Samba – The Best Of Fatma Samba known. The 60-year-old Senegalese woman, who worked professionally in the United Nations, will be leaving FIFA at the end of this year. The timing of this separation is suboptimal, of course. At first glance the matter seems clear: Another woman who is being rejected by the machos in the football business. But there is no scandal behind it. Samoura was simply the wrong woman in the wrong place.
When she did take action, she acted no differently than Gianni Infantino and all the other guys at the top of FIFA.
The only thing that had scandal potential was Samoura’s signing in 2016 and her performance since then.
Normally, one would expect a highly professional selection process from a globally operating institution like FIFA: only the best of the best should lead the billion-dollar company. But of course there was no such screening process back then. Rather, the newly elected FIFA President Gianni Infantino was surprised at the time with the personnel. A woman who had no experience in football was suddenly supposed to manage the day-to-day operations of a global corporation that now had 850 employees. There were many favorable headlines about the first African woman to head the FIFA administration – and Infantino was able to establish his real system of rule. Officially, FIFA presidents should no longer determine day-to-day business, but rather: preside. But Infantino didn’t care. He did whatever he wanted.
Samoura represents the old system
A man in Samoura’s place would probably have been called Greetings August. But what do you call a woman who was installed as part of a large-scale deception? As the head of administration who doesn’t really have anything to say and ultimately only does what Infantino orders: Greetings Fatma?
Of course, there were some suitable candidates for this top position in the football business. There have been outstanding female football officials for at least three decades, long before the Norwegian Lise Klaveness, who has been making headlines for some time because she stands up to the machos with courage, verve and skill. But that wasn’t the point of installing Samoura. It was all about Infantino wanting to give the public a false image. Diversity! Equal rights!
In terms of content, women like Samoura and Klaveness are worlds apart. Samoura stands for lack of transparency and nepotism like in the old days. On behalf of Infantino, she had her shares in the former FIFA ethics chief and the governance chief Miguel Maduro dismissed. Those who resisted the system to some extent.
In the meantime, from 2019, Infantino had sent his general secretary to Cairo for many months, where she was supposed to transform the scandal-ridden and dysfunctional African confederation CAF into a model organization and also enforce Infantino’s will. In Zurich, in Home of FIFA, she wasn’t missed. After three years of Samoura’s will-o’-the-wisps, after the first scandals, many FIFA employees liked the fact that the boss was in Africa. There she could cause less mischief. The two deputy general secretaries established themselves in Zurich Alasdair Bell and Mattias Grafström as the actual bosses – alongside Infantino, of course.
In contrast to Samoura, the Briton Bell and the Swede Grafström have been real confidants of Infantino for many years. Bell was already there when Infantino was still heading the UEFA administration, before he miraculously became a FIFA presidential candidate in the legendary summer of 2015, with the help of the Swiss justice system. Grafström started at FIFA as Infantino’s office boss and as such was involved in dubious transactions. When Infantino moved to Doha almost a year before the 2022 Men’s World Cup, FIFA policy was of course not made in Zurich by Samoura, but in Doha by Infantino.
Worst FIFA administrator? Linsi or selfie fatma?
FIFA was founded in 1904. Since then there have been nine general secretaries, an interim head of administration – and, number eleven, a female general secretary. Long-time FIFA employees are sure that only Fatma Samoura and the Swiss Linsi bear could be considered for the unofficial title of worst general secretary in FIFA history.
The former banker Linsi dabbled under the all-powerful president from 2002 to 2007 Joseph Blatter. One of Linsi’s many breathtakingly helpless appearances is the episode in September 2005 when, at a meeting in Marrakech, he despaired of explaining the regulations for a two-team draw. It was just a matter of drawing for the World Cup playoffs which team should have home advantage in the first game: Australia or Uruguay. Linsi failed in the task. After President Blatter, sitting next to him, had smirked for a while and was amused by his Secretary General’s incompetence, he saved the klutz and explained the procedure himself.
It is not known whether Samoura would have been able to carry out such a simple task. The main reason why we don’t know is that Infantino allowed his general secretary to appear less and less on such occasions. Samoura rarely played a supporting role at major FIFA events. The public found out that she was actually present, for example at the 2018 World Championships in Russia and 2022 in Qatar, via her Twitter account. In terms of content, Samoura left his mark there alone. There is no other executive in the history of FIFA who has posted so many selfies. This record remains.
Perth 2023. (Photo: Fatma Samoura’s Twitter Feed)
No evidence has yet been found of any lasting positive impact from her seven years of activity. It is known for certain that Fatma Samoura has collected more than 10 million euros in salary and bonuses over the years. She also has that in common with Urs Linsi. Blatter even gave him a severance payment of seven million euros. Hush money.
The departure on December 31, 2023 will certainly be sweetened for Samoura, even if it is only a part of the huge sum that Linsi once received for his dismissal. Whether Samoura now receives one or two million euros in addition to the ten million he has received so far is almost irrelevant in a billion-dollar company like FIFA. For comparison: from 2015, when the American judiciary threatened to dismantle the criminal FIFA system, the world association paid ten million a month to lawyers and lobbyists for more than a year in order to avoid being declared a criminal organization as part of the criminal proceedings in the USA to become.
But perhaps the investment in Samoura needs to be viewed completely differently: the appointment of the African FIFA Secretary General certainly had the hoped-for effect in some parts of the world. Pure PR, a deception. From Infantino’s perspective, it was ten million well invested.
The highlight of Fatma Samoura’s work? “I love you, president!” Take a look:
That’s all you need to know #FIFAcrime and Gianni Infantilo.
That is all you need to know.
That’s all you need to know.
All you need to know.
That’s enough. pic.twitter.com/3mAy03qid3— SPORT & POLITICS (@JensWeinreich) March 16, 2023
Fatma Samoura said that she wanted to take more care of her family in the future. Nobody has to believe that. It is more likely that she will return as CAF president or in another position in the not too distant future and join the FIFA Council.
She liked the glamour, the show biz, the princely salary, the backroom deals. This makes her very different from women like Lise Klaveness who want to blow up this broken system.
A shorter version of this text was first published in SPIEGEL published: “Will the Olympic bid work with this campaign?”