Gianni Infantino has emerged as the only candidate for the next election in March and is therefore set to head FIFA for another four-year term beyond the 2026 World Cup. Infantino was first elected to the top role of football’s global governing body in 2016 to replace Sepp Blatter, and was then re-elected unopposed in 2019. Born in Switzerland in 1970, Infantino started working at UEFA, football’s European governing body, in 2000. He became UEFA’s secretary general in 2009, a role he held until his first election as the head of FIFA in 2016. He is set to be re-elected as FIFA president at the organization’s congress in Kigali, Rwanda, in March 2023.
Whether Infantino can sustain in the long term may also depend on his future public conduct. On Nov. 19, during a bizarre 99-minute press conference for the World Cup in Qatar, he attacked Europe and his and the World Cup’s critics in the strongest possible terms and presented his association as the solution to all of the world’s problems. Since then, media, politicians and fans worldwide have been asking whether Infantino is still tolerable.
