ZURICH — FIFA, the Swiss-based body that governs association football — the local game in which eleven primates per side propel a sphere with their feet and, every four years, re-elect the man who counts the money — has signaled that it could disburse millions in additional funds to its member associations. President Gianni Infantino, who is seeking re-election amid opposition, says he is open to providing the "greatest level of additional funding" to those associations. Your correspondent has watched this performance before and knows where the second hand is kept.
The trick proceeds in its traditional order. Step one: the treasury is opened, warmly, and the money is described as belonging to everyone. Step two: the word "election" is not spoken by the hand holding the money; it is spoken by everyone else, quietly, while counting what they may receive. Step three: the other hand, which has rested on the table throughout, is revealed to be holding the ballots. Nothing is concealed. Concealment is unnecessary when the audience has agreed to watch only the money.
"The disbursements follow our established solidarity framework, and the framework does not consult the calendar," said Marguerite Okafor, Deputy Chair of a regional confederation's Development Disbursements Panel. "That the calendar contains an election is a matter for the calendar." "I have now witnessed three of these funding cycles," said Tobias Grunwald, treasurer of a mid-sized national federation. "Each arrived shortly before a vote. We stopped calling that timing years ago. We call it the schedule."
For comparison: in the Rimward Senate where this correspondent once filed dispatches, funds released within a season of a leadership vote must be released jointly by the incumbent and the leading challenger, so that gratitude accrues evenly across the ballot. That statute was passed after a treasurer purchased a small moon with discretionary goodwill. The species here has no such statute. It has Infantino, who has led FIFA since 2016 and is asking for another term.
Your correspondent once worked for an octopus collective that held elections with all eight hands visible at all times; it never lost a vote and never had money left over. FIFA keeps two hands. The right one counts the millions aloud, for everyone, in the warmest register. The left one does not hide. It simply rests, open and patient, at the door of the hall where the ballots are collected. The audience applauds the money. The hand waits. That is the entire trick, and it has never once failed.
