Prince Ali's Rebuke of FIFA Amid Arab Cup Payment
The money has finally landed in Jordan. The mood has not softened.
Two days after accusing FIFA of “blackmail”, Jordan Football Association president Prince Ali bin Hussein revealed that long-delayed prize money for the national team’s run to the 2025 Arab Cup final has at last been paid out – and made clear it will not buy his silence or support.
Prince Ali said players and staff of the Jordan national team have now received “outstanding reward money” owed for reaching the final of the FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar last December, funds the association had been chasing for eight months.
He announced the payment on Thursday with a pointed message on X, thanking the FIFA administration “for suddenly this morning delivering what was owed to our players and coaching staff, for the Jordan National team’s accession to the final of the FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar last December.”
“This was funding that should have been received eight months ago.”
The timing is impossible to ignore.
Prince Ali’s public thanks arrived just 48 hours after he accused FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino of applying pressure over his stance on a controversial plan to sell a stake in the World Cup’s commercial rights. Ali had been a prominent critic of the proposal, which collapsed amid fierce resistance from confederations and national associations and triggered a crisis meeting in Morocco this week.
According to Ali, FIFA officials indicated during the World Cup that his endorsement of Infantino’s plan “would go a long way to helping our FA out”, a reference to financial issues facing the Jordanian federation – including the missing Arab Cup prize money. He framed that as an attempt at leverage, part of what he described as a broader pattern around FIFA presidential politics.
FIFA has not responded to requests for comment on his allegations.
The governing body has already apologised to its members for “mistakes” in handling the aborted World Cup rights sale, yet its leadership closed ranks around Infantino in Morocco, reaffirming support for a president now pushing to extend his rule into a fourth and final term at elections scheduled for March.
Against that backdrop, the sudden arrival of Jordan’s overdue payment was never going to pass as a routine administrative catch-up.
Prince Ali acknowledged the money as a “welcome development” for his players and staff, but underlined that it does nothing to ease his wider misgivings about how FIFA is run. “It is symptomatic of those exact difficulties that we all face and that are usually linked to the FIFA presidential elections,” he said, casting the episode as part of a familiar cycle in global football politics.
Then he drew a clear line. “It does not change my clear position concerning the leadership of FIFA: my FA and I will not endorse President Infantino, nor will we vote for him.”
The message from Amman is blunt. The cheques may clear. The doubts about Zurich remain.
