Gianni Infantino

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 19th of November 2022, just before the World Cup opened in Qatar, Gianni Infantino told reporters that he “felt Qatari, Arab, African, gay, disabled, and like a migrant worker”. Infantino is the president of FIFA, the organisation that governs world football. The sentence still follows him around. Who is the man who chose those words, and how did he reach the top of the game? What did he do with that power once he held it? And what did the people who investigated him actually find?

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• 2. Lawyer To UEFA

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  Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino, who goes by Gianni, was born on the 23rd of March 1970 in Brig, Switzerland. His parents were Italian immigrants from the regions of Calabria and Lombardy, and he holds both Swiss and Italian citizenship. He studied law at the University of Fribourg. French, German and Italian are all mother tongues for him, and he also speaks Arabic, English, Portuguese and Spanish.

  At the University of Neuchâtel, Infantino served as Secretary General of the International Centre for Sports Studies, known as CIES. In August 2000 he began working with UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations. In January 2004 he was appointed Director of its Legal Affairs and Club Licensing Division. He became Deputy General Secretary in 2007, and then Secretary General in October 2009.

  During those years at UEFA, the organisation introduced Financial Fair Play and gave smaller national associations better commercial support. Infantino oversaw the expansion of UEFA Euro 2016 to 24 teams. He also played a part in conceiving the UEFA Nations League and UEFA Euro 2020. Euro 2020 was meant to be staged in 13 European nations, but the number was cut to 11.

  In 2015, Greece moved to pass a new sports law after scandal, violence and corruption, mainly in Greek football. Infantino led UEFA's negotiations with the Greek government. He backed the Hellenic Football Federation's warning that Greece faced suspension from international football for government interference. He was still handling that file when, later in 2015, the FIFA presidency came into view.

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• 3. Running FIFA

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  On the 26th of October 2015, the UEFA Executive Committee backed Infantino to stand in the 2016 FIFA Extraordinary Congress. He confirmed his candidacy the same day and submitted the required declarations of support. At that point he already sat on FIFA's Reform Committee. His campaign promise was to expand the World Cup to forty teams.

  Infantino was elected FIFA president on the 26th of February 2016, for a term of three years. He became the first Italian to hold the post. He was re-elected on the 5th of June 2019 and again on the 16th of March 2023. On the 10th of January 2020, he also joined the International Olympic Committee.

  In 2024, FIFA decided, with Infantino's approval, to engrave his name on the 2025 Club World Cup trophy. The trophy also carried a passage. It read: “We are witness to a new age. The golden era of club football: the era of the FIFA Club World Cup. The pinnacle of all club competitions. Inspired by the FIFA president Gianni Infantino.” The tournament had already grown to 32 teams. FIFA and Infantino have since considered going to 48 teams and staging it biannually.

  At a general assembly of European football clubs on the 9th of October 2025, Infantino reportedly asked delegates to “keep an open mind” about scheduling. He was talking about moving the World Cup out of its traditional June-to-August slot in the European summer and into winter months. His argument was that limiting the schedule would hold back the globalisation of football, because the summer timing is too hot to play in some countries. Clubs were one front for his ambitions. National teams and their hosts were another, beginning with the tournament in Russia.

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• 4. Hosts Under Fire

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  In 2019, Infantino accepted the Order of Friendship medal that Vladimir Putin gave him after the 2018 World Cup in Russia. He described that tournament as the “best World Cup ever”.

  The 2022 World Cup in Qatar brought the rights of migrant workers into the spotlight. Qatar was accused of unpaid wages, excessive working hours, illegal recruitment and the deaths of workers who helped build its stadiums. On the 3rd of May 2022, Human Rights Watch published a report on alleged violations of workers' rights, concerning laborers who died on the stadium sites. It named Infantino as FIFA's president. Amnesty International also condemned the tournament and alleged that workers had been subject to forced labour.

  When reporters asked Infantino about the abuses, he answered that migrant workers had been given work and pay. He added that they were proud to contribute to building the stadiums. In an hour-long monologue, he also accused Western countries of “hypocrisy” for criticising Qatar on moral grounds. He said: “What we Europeans have been doing for the last 3,000 years, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons.” He aimed the same charge at Western companies that profit from business in Qatar without raising workers' rights with Qatari authorities.

  Norway's national team coach, Ståle Solbakken, replied that Infantino was not fit to teach anyone about morals and ethics. He called him neither a great sports leader nor a great historian. A third host, Saudi Arabia, would later be chosen under rules that Infantino helped shape.

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• 5. The Saudi Route

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  Photographs of Infantino beside the Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman are frequent, and the relationship between FIFA's president and the Saudi regime is documented. Infantino has often promoted Saudi sporting events on social media. He also engaged in private diplomacy for Saudi Arabia. He explored whether Greece and Egypt might partner with the Saudis to host the 2030 World Cup.

  That plan collapsed when Spain, Portugal and Morocco announced a joint bid for 2030. It was considered unlikely that anyone could beat them, and Saudi Arabia backed out of the race.

  In October 2023, FIFA announced that the opening three games of the 2030 tournament would be played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. The rest would be played in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. That spread the 2030 event over three continents, so Africa, Europe and South America were ruled out of bidding for 2034. North America was also excluded after the 2026 World Cup. Only Asian or Oceanian bids remained, which greatly reduced the number of possible rivals.

  FIFA then sped up the bidding process in a way many did not expect, giving interested nations just 25 days to declare an intent to host. Within minutes, Saudi Arabia announced a bid. Within hours, the head of the Asian Football Confederation backed it. Infantino had urged the confederation to unite fully behind the Saudi bid and discouraged other members from submitting their own. Infantino himself announced on the 31st of October 2023 that Saudi Arabia would host the 2034 World Cup.

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• 6. Access And Principle

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  In 2017, Infantino criticised the United States' travel ban on several Muslim-majority nations. He said: “When it comes to FIFA competitions, any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious.”

  After the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran banned women from stadiums when men's teams were playing. Infantino repeatedly warned the Iranian football federation and the authorities of the Islamic Republic about women's rights. On the 8th of September 2019, Sahar Khodayari self-immolated after being arrested for trying to enter a stadium.

  Infantino responded that month. He said: “Our position is clear and firm. Women have to be allowed into football stadiums in Iran. Now is the moment to change things.” FIFA then assured Iranian women that they could attend stadiums from October 2019. On the 10th of October 2019, more than 3,500 women went to the Azadi Stadium for a World Cup qualifier against Cambodia.

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• 7. Questions Of Conduct

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  Documents released in 2016 as the Panama Papers drew Infantino into the FIFA corruption scandal. They showed that UEFA had made deals with indicted figures after previously denying any relationship. Infantino said he was “dismayed” by the reports. He insisted that he had never personally dealt with the parties involved.

  In July 2016, the investigatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee interviewed Infantino on suspicion of breaching the FIFA code of ethics. The inquiry looked at flights he took in his first months as president and at hiring processes in the president's office. It also examined his refusal to sign the contract that set out his employment relationship with FIFA.

  A leaked document that surfaced around then alleged illegitimate spending. It said Infantino billed FIFA for personal items, including £8,795 for mattresses at his home and £6,829 for a stepper exercise machine. It also listed £1,086 for a tuxedo, £677 for flowers and £132 for personal laundry. It further alleged that he demanded FIFA hire an external driver for his family and advisors while he was away. The source notes that FIFA's own expenses and governance were not investigated.

  Private jets raised a separate worry. The hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Russia and Qatar, had organised flights for Infantino and his staff on visits to their countries, which raised the potential for a conflict of interest. The chamber found no violation. It judged the hiring and contract matters, if they were a problem at all, to be “internal compliance issues rather than an ethical matter”.

  Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of FC Bayern Munich, kept up the criticism even after Infantino was discharged. He said Infantino had not delivered on promises about transparency, democracy and governance. In his words: “So far this has not succeeded in my eyes.”

  In July 2020, Infantino was accused of holding a secret meeting with the Attorney General of Switzerland, named Lauber in the source. Lauber offered to resign after a court ruled that he had covered up the meeting and lied to supervisors during his office's investigation into corruption around FIFA. Infantino defended himself: “to meet with the attorney general of Switzerland is perfectly legitimate and it's perfectly legal. It's no violation of anything.”

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• 8. Politics And Passports

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  On the 15th of May 2025, Infantino arrived two hours late to the 75th FIFA Congress in Asunción. He had been meeting the United States president, Donald Trump, in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. UEFA's leaders all walked out in protest. They accused him of putting political interests ahead of football.

  In November 2025, Infantino introduced the FIFA Peace Prize. Trump received the inaugural award in Washington, D.C., in December 2025. Critics noted that Trump “has aggressively campaigned for and carped about” the Nobel Peace Prize. The timing and the optics, in one commentator's phrase, “have fueled questions about the blurring of sport and diplomacy”.

  Infantino is married to Leena Al Ashqar, who is from Lebanon, and the couple has four children. Since October 2021, he has spent time in Doha, where he rents a house and where two of his children attend school. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter was among those who speculated that Infantino might move FIFA's headquarters away from Zürich. Infantino said his official residency stayed in Canton Zürich, and that organising the Qatar World Cup required his presence there. In June 2022, he moved his official residency to Zug.

  On the 25th of November 2025, Infantino began the process of obtaining Lebanese citizenship. It followed a meeting with Lebanon's president, Joseph Aoun, and the Lebanese Football Association president, Hachem Haidar. He became a Lebanese citizen on the 16th of February 2026.

  His honours include being made a Commander of the Order of Merit of Niger in 2017 and a commander of the Congolese Order of Merit in 2019. The Asian Football Confederation gave him its Diamond of Asia in 2023. The most recent entry in that list is a Friendship Medal dated 2026.

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