Former Morocco international Houssine Kharja, who serves as an adviser to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, has mounted a strong defense of the FIFA chief, arguing that much of the criticism directed at him in recent months comes from European circles concerned about losing their traditional dominance over global football.
In an extensive, exclusive interview published by SOCCER212 on Saturday under the title “Football Belongs to Everyone,” Kharja said the controversy surrounding Infantino's proposed projects to national football associations had been taken out of context.
According to Kharja, FIFA’s president merely puts forward proposals to national associations, which remain entirely free to accept or reject them. There is no obligation for any association to participate, he said.
Kharja argued that Infantino’s critics had seized on the issue to attack the FIFA president and his broader vision, while he believes the search for new investments and financial resources is aimed at providing greater opportunities to national associations that lack the financial capabilities of traditional football powers.
He went further, saying the current dispute was about more than financing. In his view, it reflects Infantino’s ambition to make football more global and give smaller countries and associations greater opportunities to develop and compete.
“This policy is bothering part of Europe,” Kharja said, arguing that some European football powers are increasingly seeing other continents narrow the gap that historically separated them from Europe’s leading nations.
He said Europe “feels threatened” by this shift, pointing to the development of football outside the continent and the growing ability of national teams once considered second-tier sides to compete with traditional powers.
Kharja also cited the case of dual-nationality players who are born and developed football-wise in Europe before choosing to represent their countries of origin, including Morocco.
Against this backdrop, Kharja argued that most of the attacks against Infantino, in his reading, are coming from Europe because some traditional football powers fear losing their dominant position as other confederations and continents gain greater influence.
He stressed the message reflected in the interview's title: “Football belongs to everyone.”
Kharja also criticized what he described as a double standard over private investment. European clubs and competitions, he argued, have benefited for years from large-scale private and foreign capital, while the issue becomes controversial when FIFA seeks new sources of funding that could benefit associations outside Europe.
He described this as a contradiction that effectively amounts to allowing Europe to do what it seeks to prevent FIFA from doing.
Kharja also aimed former Portugal international Luís Figo, responding sharply to his criticism of Infantino and his calls for the FIFA president to leave office.
Kharja described Figo’s position as “shameful”, particularly given what he said Infantino had done for former players and global football stars during his tenure.
He also challenged the substance of Figo’s criticism, arguing that the former Portugal international was not in a position to lecture others about “money, selfishness and dignity”.
In this context, Kharja referred to one of the most controversial transfers in Spanish football, Figo’s 2000 move from Barcelona to arch-rivals Real Madrid. Given the circumstances surrounding that transfer, Kharja argued, Figo could hardly use money or selfishness as the basis for an ethical criticism of Infantino.
Kharja said he knows Infantino closely and works with him, insisting that the image portrayed by some of his critics does not correspond to the person he knows.
He argued that the FIFA president has been subjected to unfair attacks and that the scale of the criticism does not reflect what has been achieved during his years at the helm of world football's governing body.
For Kharja, the issue is therefore not simply a technical dispute over financing, but a broader struggle over who holds influence and decision-making power, as well as how power and wealth will be distributed within the global game, between Europe, which has historically dominated world football, and other continents and associations seeking a greater role in the international football system.
