Jordan Football Association Receives Prize Money from FIFA

Jordan finally has its money. The politics, though, are only getting started.

Two days after accusing FIFA of “blackmail”, Jordan Football Association president Prince Ali bin Hussein revealed that players and staff from the national team have at last received the prize money owed for their run to the 2025 Arab Cup final in Qatar.

The funds landed on Thursday morning. The anger has not gone anywhere.

“Thank you to 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,” Ali posted on X. “This was funding that should have been received eight months ago.”

For Ali, the delayed payment is not an isolated administrative hiccup. It sits at the heart of a wider confrontation with FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the organisation’s leadership.

Accusations of pressure and promises

Earlier in the week, Ali publicly criticised Infantino after the FIFA president abandoned a controversial proposal to sell a stake in the World Cup’s commercial rights, a plan that had triggered fierce resistance from confederations and national associations.

Ali said that during the World Cup, FIFA officials verbally linked support for Infantino with help in easing Jordan’s financial strain, including the overdue Arab Cup prize money. He claimed FIFA had “offered to help solve the kingdom’s problems” in exchange for his endorsement of the World Cup commercial deal.

One of those problems, he underlined, was the missing reward money for the team’s performance in Qatar. Jordan had been waiting since December.

FIFA has not responded to requests for comment on Ali’s allegations.

Money arrives, stance hardens

The sudden transfer of the funds on Thursday may resolve one practical issue for Jordan’s players and coaching staff, but it has only sharpened Ali’s critique of how world football is being run.

He welcomed the payment as “a welcome development” yet stressed that it did nothing to alter his view of FIFA’s leadership or the dynamics around its presidential elections.

“It is symptomatic of those exact difficulties that we all face and that are usually linked to the FIFA presidential elections,” he said, making clear that the timing of the payment would not buy his support.

“And 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 line could hardly be firmer. Money in the bank, but no backing at the ballot box.

Infantino digs in as election looms

Ali’s broadside comes at a delicate moment for Infantino. Under heavy fire for the World Cup rights plan, FIFA’s leadership was forced into a hasty climbdown, apologising to its member associations for “mistakes” around the abandoned proposal after a crisis meeting in Morocco on Wednesday.

Yet inside that same meeting, the top brass closed ranks. The leadership reaffirmed its support for Infantino, who is seeking to extend his decade-long spell at the helm into a fourth and final term, with elections scheduled for March.

The Jordanian president’s refusal to endorse him is unlikely to derail that bid on its own. But it adds a public, principled dissenting voice at a time when questions over governance, transparency and power inside FIFA are once again in the spotlight.

The players now have what they earned in Qatar. The bigger contest, over who controls the game and on what terms, is only heading into extra time.