Seventy-two MEPs, UEFA and La Liga’s Javier Tebas have all challenged Gianni Infantino in the past fortnight. He faces no rival for the presidency.
La Liga President Javier Tebas has told La Gazzetta dello Sport Gianni Infantino’s time was up as the head of FIFA, that FIFA’s election system was “rotten at its core” and that no rival would put themselves forward to lose. He said FIFA was destroying the football industry and that national leagues, not the World Cup, sustain the sport.
Infantino confirmed his candidacy at the 76th FIFA Congress in Vancouver on 30 April, telling the 211 member associations he would stand for the 2027-31 term. The vote takes place at the 77th Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on 18 March 2027.
Three of the six confederations endorsed him before he declared. CAF, the AFC and CONMEBOL control 54, 47 and 10 votes respectively, enough to settle the election between them. Infantino was returned by acclamation as the sole candidate in 2019 and again in 2023.
FIFA’s statutes limit a president to three four-year terms. Infantino has said the three years he served completing Sepp Blatter‘s term from 2016 do not count towards that limit. A fourth term would take him to 15 years in office.
Infantino Balogun scrutiny draws in the European Parliament
The Folarin Balogun case has produced the first formal challenge to Infantino from outside football. FIFA’s disciplinary committee suspended the automatic one-match ban given to the United States striker for a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 1 July, using Article 27 of the disciplinary code to defer the sanction for a probationary year.
President Trump called FIFA's move to suspend US striker Folarin Balogun's red-card ban at the World Cup a 'brilliant decision' after he personally contacted global soccer boss Gianni Infantino on the matter https://t.co/uRKXvdBMNs pic.twitter.com/UCqas8lLN1
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 6, 2026
US President Donald Trump had telephoned Infantino about the case, which both men confirmed. The Associated Press recorded it as the first suspension of a World Cup punishment since 1962.
UEFA called the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable”. The Royal Belgian Football Association said it was astonished and lodged an appeal, which FIFA ruled inadmissible. Belgium beat the United States 4-1 and eliminated them.
Seventy-two members of the European Parliament wrote to the football associations of the 27 EU member states on 7 July, asking them to press FIFA’s ethics committee to open an investigation. The letter cites Article 4(2) of the FIFA statutes and Article 15 of the code of ethics, both of which require political neutrality.
Barry Andrews, Lara Wolters and Niels Fuglsang said the decision was “a disgrace and a perversion of justice”. The MEPs also raised the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to Trump at the World Cup draw in Washington in December.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin did not attend the final in New Jersey.
Three confederations oppose 64-team expansion
Infantino said FIFA’s committees would examine a 64-team 2030 World Cup once the 2026 tournament had finished. Conmebol proposed the format at a FIFA Council meeting in March 2025 to mark the competition’s centenary.
Ceferin has called it “a bad idea” for the tournament and for qualifying. AFC President Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa said it would cause “chaos”. CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani said expansion should not be on the table before the 48-team format had been played once.
Infantino told the same New York meeting that FIFA expects revenues to pass $15bn for the 2023-2026 cycle.
FIFA has invested $5bn in football development over ten years through its Forward programme and committed a further $2.7bn under Forward 4.0. Infantino told the Vancouver congress that member associations would receive £1.98bn ($2.68bn) in distributions over the next four years.
Infantino said the 2026 World Cup bested every record, citing 6.6 million spectators across 16 stadiums and 104 matches over 39 days.
