Business With Blain: Infantino's Icarus Moment

Gianni Infantino has been President of FIFA for more than 10 years.

He was first elected as President in February 2016 in a second-round vote following the suspension of Sepp Blatter (in December 2015), who, after being investigated by the FIFA Ethics Committee, was banned for eight years.

Blatter was punished for making payments, without a contractual basis, to Michel Platini, the then president of UEFA.

Blatter was subsequently acquitted in a criminal court but remained banned as FIFA determined he had fallen short of their ethical standards.

Within six months of being elected, Infantino was investigated by FIFA’s Ethics Committee, which found that he had not breached the FIFA Code of Ethics.

After following through in early 2017 with one of his campaign commitments, he secured a unanimous decision from the FIFA Council that resulted in the 2026 World Cup being expanded to a 48-team format.

At the time of the announcement, Infantino said:

“… 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 …”

It is sadly not unusual in this world of ours for people to say one thing and then allow something else to happen. Nonetheless, Infantino was re-elected as FIFA President in 2019, and using his previously successful approach proposed an expansion of the Women’s World Cup to 32 teams, alongside a doubling of the prize money.

He was re-elected unopposed again in 2023 for a second four-year term that is due to expire in 2027, and after a successful Women’s World Cup, he announced in 2025 that it, too, would be expanded to 48 teams from the 2031 edition.

So, all was good for the President, or so it seemed. He sat comfortably on his throne at the top of FIFA, and with the 2026 Men’s World Cup set to be bigger and better than ever, he was expected to be re-elected yet again in 2027, and most likely unopposed, too.

Infantino has, though, been involved in high-profile controversies over the years, including four or more significant formal investigations or official ethics/criminal proceedings. FIFA has cleared him, and a Swiss Criminal investigation was closed without any charges being brought against him.

Additionally, he has been involved in many controversies including:

• The expansion of the men’s World Cup to 48 teams

• Proposals to hold the World Cup every two years

• The (apparently) hasty award of the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia

• A bizarre speech prior to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar

I think that it is fair to say that, unlike Blatter, whose period as President was blighted by investigations into bribery and corruption, Infantino’s issues have been more associated with governance, decision-making, and a lack of transparency. Couple this with the attitude of invincibility he seemingly possesses, and this is what may finally cause him to have problems he can’t overcome as his status and integrity come under overwhelming scrutiny.

What Infantino has done over the years is build a strong coalition of support for his candidacy by frequently securing sufficient votes from the 211 voting members of FIFA to make a challenge to him appear futile and thus discourage challengers.

He has achieved this by:

• Expanding financial support to member associations

• Expanding FIFA Competitions

• Building Support outside of Europe

• Discouraging challengers by political reality

What is clear is that he is an adept political player and a damned good campaigner, and he generally delivers upon his campaign promises. Promises that play well to the ears of the Associations of Africa, Asia, Oceana, and many of the Americas and the Caribbean nations, where a majority of the voting members reside.

Infantino’s playbook appears quite simple: Deliver more World Cup places (hence the suggestion of increasing the number of teams to 64), and distribute FIFA wealth more widely. In turn, that delivers more votes. There is nothing inherently wrong with this and as a wise man called Spock once said, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

However, Infantino, it seems, may have become (at least in his own mind), untouchable; his repeatable process has brought him the votes to, with apparent ease, win successive elections.

His behaviour was commensurate with his apparent power; he believes his own hype as he is lauded by real Presidents of nations, not just of a football federation, and royalty too. He enjoys the life of someone who is feted wherever he goes, and in the recent World Cup, he was seen at different games on the same day thousands of miles apart as he made use of FIFA’s private Gulfstream jet that was supplied by Qatar Airways as part of a sponsorship deal.

Infantino has accumulated more influence and subsequently centralised power of any FIFA President before him, because of a strong alliance with and the support of the majority of FIFA’s 211 members while increasing FIFA’s financial reach.

It was this situation that presumably led Infantino to believe that, in simple terms, he could create a new legal entity that would control the Commercial Rights of the World Cup.

Such an entity could be worth £20bn, and the resulting “sell-off” of 20% could result in a cash injection to FIFA of around $4bn. Once this was made public, UEFA, subsequently followed by others, strongly opposed the idea, and in their case laid down a strong threat by saying if this happened, UEFA nations would not compete in FIFA Competitions.

At the time that happened, I suspect Infantino might have thought something along the lines, “UEFA only has 55 votes, and they won’t carry out the threat anyway” – those thoughts would not have lasted long, though as he and FIFA quickly lost control of the narrative.

At the time of writing the proposal has been pulled by Infantino. And it is just Infantino, as he appears to have not got round to discussing this properly with his FIFA colleagues or its members before it unravelled, so he embarked on damage control by calling an emergency meeting in Morocco with his senior officials.

This seemed set to be Infantino’s Icarus moment, when he finally flew too close to the sun and was scorched because of it.

However, while Infantino issued an apology, he came out in a firm defence of his place at the top of world football’s governing body. He is not ceding his crown.

FIFA’s statement also said: “[It] will no longer tolerate any attacks on its integrity, good governance and due process and will take all necessary measures to protect and safeguard its name and reputation.”

It remains to be seen if this issue is seen by FIFA’s members as Infantino making a “poor business decision” and then pulling back on it, or if he “no longer represents the best interests of the FIFA Family”; either way, it seems to me that he is unlikely now to be re-elected unopposed and a challenger is almost inevitable.

The question will soon become who will face him in 2027, and can they win?