Jordan Receives Delayed Arab Cup Prize Money Amid FIFA Controversy

Jordan finally has its Arab Cup money. The politics around it are only getting started.

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 suddenly landed in Amman.

The timing could hardly be more charged.

Eight months late – then paid in a morning

Jordan reached the final of the FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar last December, a landmark achievement that, in theory, came with significant prize money for players and staff. In practice, that money never arrived.

Prince Ali said the association had been waiting since December for the payments. Then, on Thursday morning, they appeared.

“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,” he wrote on X.

“This was funding that should have been received eight months ago.”

The players and staff are finally rewarded. The questions around FIFA’s leadership, in Ali’s view, are not.

Accusations of pressure and “blackmail”

The public gratitude came hard on the heels of a far more explosive claim.

Prince Ali had accused FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, of effectively trying to leverage Jordan’s financial problems to secure his political backing. He said that during the World Cup, FIFA officials verbally indicated that support for Infantino “would go a long way to helping our FA out”.

One of the issues on the table, he said, was exactly this overdue Arab Cup money.

Ali’s criticism is rooted in the fallout from Infantino’s abandoned proposal to sell a stake in the World Cup’s commercial rights. The plan collapsed under fierce resistance from confederations and national associations, including European bodies, leaving Infantino facing a rare wave of open dissent.

Ali has placed himself firmly among the dissenters.

FIFA has not responded to requests for comment on his allegations.

Money arrives, stance hardens

The payment may ease Jordan’s immediate concerns, but it has not softened Ali’s position.

He welcomed the release of the funds, then immediately framed it as part of a broader pattern he sees around FIFA politics and 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.

“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 message is blunt: Jordan will take what it is owed, but it will not trade that for support in Zurich.

Infantino digs in for a fourth term

While Ali sharpens his criticism, FIFA’s inner circle continues to rally around Infantino.

This week, after a crisis meeting in Morocco, FIFA apologised to its members for “mistakes” in the handling of the scrapped commercial rights proposal. The leadership, however, reaffirmed its backing for the president.

Infantino is now pushing to extend his tenure into a fourth and final term, with an election scheduled for March. He has already held the top job for close to a decade; another mandate would entrench his era at the heart of the global game.

Against that backdrop, the sudden transfer of long-overdue prize money to Jordan looks less like an administrative footnote and more like another flashpoint in an increasingly bitter contest over how football is governed, who gets paid on time, and who refuses to fall in line.