| Fifa has long promised to grow the game in the USA USA USA, and what better place to do that than by opening a new office at the original venue of the 1991 Rumblelows League Cup fifth-round draw, Trump Tower in New York City. With its former leader recently involved in (and acquitted from) a corruption case, and accusations of the current president pursuing “private interests” over his responsibilities, what better place for Fifa to shake off the image as a cash-chasing, power-hungry behemoth than in the actual residence of the current USA president? “Fifa [is] a global organisation [and] to be global you have to be local, you have to be everywhere, so we have to be in New York,” Infantino said, ignoring that after the opening of an office in Miami last year that had absolutely nothing to do with the recent signing of Lionel Messi in the city, Fifa now has more offices in the US than it does in the entirety of either South America or the Far East. “Not just for the Fifa Club World Cup this year and the Fifa World Cup next year – we have to be in New York as well when it comes to where our offices are based.” Gianni and co do have a men’s World Cup to prepare for in a year’s time, although Football Daily does not recall Fifa opening any offices in any of the previous host World Cup nations – Qatar or Russia – since Infantino was elected in 2015. But Trump Tower is a special place: four gold-painted elevators and 240 tons of Breccia Pernice pink white-veined marble adorn the skyscraper’s lobby and public spaces, plus the in-house restaurant, Trump Grill, was once labelled by Vanity Fair as perhaps “the worst restaurant in America”. Fifa offices have always been a bit quirky, though, and none stranger than their global headquarters in Zurich, a zero-emission building which is mostly underground, with the meeting room for the executive committee hermetically sealed. “Places where people make decisions should only contain indirect light,” said former president Sepp Blatter after the building’s completion in 2006, a devastatingly bad attempt to distance himself from the image of a Bond villain. “Because the light should come from the people themselves who are assembled there.” Sure. President Trump unfortunately chose not to come downstairs into the light of the press conference to open this new office – in fairness, he has got quite a bit on, at the moment – with renowned soccer enthusiast Eric Trump instead shunted out to face the cameras alongside Infantino. “On behalf of myself, on behalf of New York, on behalf of the Trump Organization and everybody that works in this building – we love you. We’re honoured, we’re excited about all the things that Fifa is doing,” trumpeted Eric, with a straight face. | 