Удирдлагын багийн шийдвэр болон хөрөнгө оруулалтын төлөвлөгөө амжилтгүй болсноор ФИФА-гийн тэргүүний өмнө нь дардан байсан зам дардасгүй боллоо.
Ванкувер хотод болсон 2026 оны ФИФА-гийн конгрессын үеэр Жанни Инфантино гурав дахь бөгөөд сүүлийн бүрэн эрхийн хугацаандаа өрсөлдөх нь тодорхой мэт байсан ч сүүлийн өдрүүдэд нөхцөл байдал эрс өөрчлөгдлөө. ФИФА-гийн арилжаа, үйл ажиллагааны хувьцааны 21 хувийг хөрөнгө оруулалтын сан руу худалдах оролдлого бүтэлгүйтсэний улмаас УЕФА болон бусад холбоодууд түүний удирдлагад итгэхээ больсноо албан ёсоор мэдэгдэв. Улмаар ойр шадар холбоотнууд болон зөвлөхүүд нь түүнээс нүүр буруулж, ирэх оны гуравдугаар сарын 17-нд товлогдсон ерөнхийлөгчийн сонгууль өрсөлдөөнгүй болох нь эргэлзээтэй болж эхэлжээ.
Блэттерийн авлигын дуулиант хэргийн дараа 2016 онд ФИФА ерөнхийлөгчийн бүрэн эрхийн хугацааг 12 жилээр хязгаарласан хэдий ч Инфантино анхны гурван жилийн хугацааг үүнд тооцохгүй байх замаар 15 жил ажиллах боломжийг бүрдүүлсэн юм. Өмнөх хоёр сонгуульд гишүүн холбоодын саналаар бус санал нэгтэйгээр батламжлагдаж байсан тэрбээр энэ удаад УЕФА, Азийн хөлбөмбөгийн холбоо, Конкакаф зэрэг томоохон холбоодын шүүмжлэлтэй тулгараад байна. Эдгээр холбоодын гишүүдийн санал нийлбэл Инфантиног огцруулах хангалттай олонх болох боломжтой аж.
Гэсэн хэдий ч Катар зэрэг зарим гишүүн улсууд Инфантиног тууштай дэмжиж байгаагаа илэрхийлсэн бөгөөд нэр дэвшүүлэх хугацаа арваннэгдүгээр сарын 18-нд дуусах юм. Конкакафын ерөнхийлөгч Виктор Монтальяни Инфантинотой өрсөлдөхөөр нухацтай судалж байгаа бөгөөд ирэх 16 долоо хоногт шинэ нэр дэвшигчид дэмжлэг цуглуулах боломжтой байна. Түүнчлэн холбоодын тавны нэг нь хүсэлт гаргавал ээлжит бус конгресс хуралдуулж, итгэл үзүүлэх эсэх санал хураалт явуулах эрхтэй байгаа нь ирэх өдрүүдэд ФИФА-д томоохон өөрчлөлт гарах магадлалыг өндөрсгөж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Gianni Infantino’s closing remarks at the 2026 FIFA Congress in Vancouver confirmed the inevitable. Next year would see him standing for re-election as FIFA president, with an expectation from everyone in the room that he would be doing so unopposed for a third and final full term through to 2031.
“The journey goes on!”, Infantino cheerfully concluded in one of his relentless Instagram posts in April.
There was a sense of certainty to FIFA’s future back then but now? Not so much.
The ill-fated attempts to sell a 21 per cent stake in FIFA’s commercial and event operations to an investment fund have seen the ground beneath Infantino’s feet begin to crumble in the last week, with UEFA among those to publicly declare confidence had been lost in the president’s leadership. Allies and advisers have also jumped ship, unable to retain support in FIFA’s beleaguered leader.
A clear, unchallenged run towards reelection no longer appears a given for Infantino next year. FIFA’s planned presidential election, scheduled for March 17, suddenly looks a lot more uncertain.
How often does FIFA change its president?
It has been a rare occurrence. FIFA has not known many presidents since its first, the French journalist Robert Guerin, took office in 1904. Infantino is only the ninth person to hold the increasingly powerful position and only the third since the mid-1970s after Joao Havelange and Sepp Blatter together racked up over 40 years in the role.
It was the downfall of Blatter amid a storm of corruption allegations (he was found guilty of unethical conduct by FIFA’s own ethics committee) that led to FIFA capping its presidential terms to 12 years in 2016, the same year that saw Infantino, the former UEFA executive, take over with grand plans. Infantino has been able to work around that limit by arguing his initial three-year term should not count towards the 12-year and three-term cap, allowing him the chance to bring up 15 years in the job with re-election next spring.
FIFA holds its elections every four years, staging them at the Congress that follows a men’s World Cup. They were held in 2019 and 2023 but, in an illustration of the support Infantino has typically commanded, neither required the member associations to vote. Those two unopposed re-elections were instead approved by acclamation, a process that installed Infantino for another four years without the need for a ballot.
We must go all the way back to 2016 to see FIFA’s democratic process play out with a meaningful vote. That was Infantino’s first triumph, seeing off four rival candidates to succeed Blatter at an Extraordinary Congress held in Zurich.
Runner-up Sheikh Salman congratulates Gianni Infantino on his presidential win in 2016 (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
Infantino, who had announced his bid to become president in the wake of Michel Platini’s exclusion from the race due to alleged corruption, faced Prince Ali bin Hussein, Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, Jerome Champagne and Tokyo Sexwale. Infantino was able to collect the necessary votes to beat the initial favourite Sheikh Salman, now a FIFA vice president and member of the Council, during a second round of voting. Until events of the last week, it had become a position of total strength.
How do the elections work?
A FIFA presidential election process in effect lasts for a year, from one Congress to the next.
Anyone wishing to stand as a candidate needs to have “played an active role in association football” for two of the last five years before standing and be able to pass an eligibility check carried out by a FIFA committee.
Most importantly, though, they also need declarations of support from at least five member associations ahead of a deadline, which this year falls on November 18.
Only one candidate can be backed by an association — an important detail given the symbolic withdrawal of support for Infantino by a number of members, including Wales and England, in recent days. This, after all, was a man who claimed to have received pledges of support from 200 of the 211 members earlier this year as he planned for the next election.
Winning the backing of five member associations opens the door to a candidate but, in reality, there will need to be a whole lot more to oust Infantino.
FIFA’s statutes say a simple majority of over 50 per cent is required to win a presidential election when there are two candidates standing, which equates to collecting 106 votes from the 211 associations. All association votes count the same: the Spanish FA holds the same power as counterparts from the Seychelles, and Argentina’s vote carries the same weight as Aruba.
Looking after the needs of the smaller nations has been a means of cementing the popularity of Infantino, but the backlash that has come from three confederations presents a new problem. UEFA, whose associations account for 55 votes, have declared their opposition to Infantino, while the Asian Football Confederation (AFC, 46) and the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf, 35) have also been critical of the sitting president’s now-scrapped plans.
There are enough votes from those three confederations to bring down Infantino, but there is no guarantee that all members of these associations will vote in the same way. Qatar, for one, a member of AFC, has said it “fully supports” Infantino in the last 72 hours.
A presidential election is typically won through the build-up of support from within confederations but there is no bloc voting during a process held in secret. Sheikh Salman had the public backing of Asian and African confederations in 2016 (theoretically more than 100 associations) but his vote failed to climb above 88.
An election that includes more than two candidates will initially see a two-thirds majority required in the opening round, with further rounds of voting held until the number is whittled down. Infantino needed two rounds before his 115 votes were enough to win in 2016.
A rival to Infantino now has 16 weeks to garner support before the candidacy deadline, with The Athletic reporting that Concacaf president Victor Montagliani was seriously considering a first challenge to Infantino in more than a decade.
When will the next presidential election take place?
It was formally announced at the 2026 Congress in April that the 2027 presidential vote would be held in Morocco on March 18, a vote that would shape who will lead FIFA into its centenary World Cup, played across six countries in 2030. But other forces could force that to change.
That the vote would take place in Morocco was considered significant for a nation that holds ambitions to stage the 2030 World Cup final ahead of co-hosts Spain. It was also considered significant for Infantino, given the strength of support he has traditionally enjoyed from CAF, the governing body of African football. FIFA previously chose the Rwandan capital Kigali for its 2023 election, where Infantino won by acclaim.
The 2023 FIFA Congress in Kigali, where Gianni Infantino was re-elected by acclaim (SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images)
The plan to hold the election in March next year is facing threats, however. An emergency meeting of FIFA’s Council could be called if one of two things happens. First, if a majority of the Council’s 37 members have grown disillusioned with Infantino’s leadership. Second, and perhaps more likely, an emergency Congress can be called if a fifth of member associations request one. UEFA alone has enough numbers to do so, which could lead to a vote of no confidence in FIFA’s president. An emergency congress brought Infantino to power 10 years ago — might it be that another brings him down?
The coming days and weeks will signpost where this saga turns, but FIFA’s next election no longer carries the same guarantees it once might have for Infantino.
