FIFA president Gianni Infantino presents US president Donald Trump with a Fifa World Cup ticket in the Oval Office of the White House on August 22. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

This year in New York, Fifa opened an office in Trump Tower. Good politicking. An easy decision to take in furtherance of diplomacy, it helped keep football on the right side of an irascible US president.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino took his fawning levels up a notch this week when he was pictured with world leaders in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, flanking the leader of the free world.

But despite Infantino’s globetrotting and full-throated support, on Tuesday Donald Trump decided to flex his muscles over where next year’s World Cup in the USA can and can’t be staged.

It took Trum

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