Football Stands Above Politics, But Does FIFA President Gianni Infantino?

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is just around the corner, and fans are more anxious than excited. The federation has ballooned the tournament from 32 to 48 teams. With increased participants and the ongoing geopolitical turmoil anchored by US President Donald Trump, the situation seems more distressing. Travel bans on 39 countries, including Iran, Haiti, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal, have suddenly led to thousands of fans feeling stuck with the match ticket in their hands that they can’t even use. Sitting right at the centre of all this drama? FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

Most football fans recognised Infantino as the man standing on the stage of the UEFA Champions League draws, pulling out little balls from a glass bowl containing team names. But the question arises: How did Infantino end up running the most-watched sports tournament on the planet?

In May 2015, as the sun rose over Zurich, there seemed to be a change in the air. FBI agents dressed in civil attire entered the luxurious Bar au Lac hotel. They barged in and arrested some of the top leadership of FIFA. As the officials of the federation were escorted out of the hotel, curtains were drawn to shield the embarrassment from the reporters and, more importantly, the world. It was evident that the untouchable empire governing football all around the globe is under siege. Already under intense scrutiny for corruption, scandals and criminal investigations, the message was clear: bring in a new face of the federation.

It was understandable that Sepp Blatter, a former Swiss football administrator who served as the president from 1998 to 2015, would soon be gone, and France’s Michael Platini’s plans for a comeback were to collapse. And when FIFA started to think of restoring its lost reputation, a name emerged from the wreckage: a perfectly round, bald Swiss lawyer, Gianni Infantino.

Nobody had a clue that the head of the most powerful sport on earth would end up becoming the closest of allies to some of the most powerful political figures in the world. And after a decade, Infantino finds himself in that very spot. He has an unusually warm relationship with Trump. When Trump ordered the establishment of a task force for the 2026 World Cup, Infantino was a prominent presence there. The trophy has even made a trip to the Oval Office. The duo has publicly exchanged fondness towards each other many times. Many supporters would term this simply ‘practical politics’. Obviously, no president of a federation can afford to antagonise the head of state, and that too, someone who’s going to host the World Cup for you.

We get it. World Cups need coordination between the states and the federations. It needs infrastructure, security, and easy flow of fans and spectators, but what Gianni did at the World Cup draw in Washington crossed a line for many people.

The FIFA head gave the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize to Donald Trump. He even posted a story on Instagram that the US president ‘definitely deserves’ a Nobel Peace Prize. For someone who ordered the invasion of a neighbouring country and the abduction of its sitting president, giving the green light for drone strikes in Gulf states, presenting a peace prize doesn’t make sense. A London-based human rights non-profit, FairSquare, even filed a request for an investigation into Infantino's alleged breaches of FIFA's statutory duty to be politically neutral. People have always questioned this closeness, but the trend emerged much before that.

In 2018, FIFA chose Russia as the host for its World Cup. A country already under scrutiny for Crimea, election interference allegations and state-sponsored doping charges isn’t a wise choice for a tournament as massive as that. But Gianni remained enthusiastic about the partnership and even went on to call the 2018 edition the ‘best ever’. He was later honoured with Russia’s highest state honours, the Order of Friendship, by Putin as a gesture of gratitude for keeping politics out of football. In the 2022 Qatar edition of the World Cup, he delivered an hour-long speech and even called himself ‘gay’ and a migrant worker.

From being greeted by ‘Dealmaker Trump’ as “my boy Gianni” and receiving Russia’s Order of Friendship award from Putin himself to calling himself a Qatari, migrant worker, disabled and even gay at the opening ceremony of the 2022 FIFA World Cup hosted by Qatar, while the country faced enormous scrutiny about migrant workers, labour and LGBTQ+ rights. It's said that sports, especially football, have always stood above politics, but Infantino appears to be rather fascinated by it.

When Infantino campaigned in 2016, he promised reforms. There were some genuine attempts at implementation in the formative years of his presidency, like transparency, financial redistribution, VAR, and FIFA Forward, but it appears that now his ‘reversing reforms’ are attempts to consolidate power for political expansion over accountability.

A man who arrived with aspirations to restore the lost trust in FIFA may ultimately be remembered for his relationships rather than reforms. The administrator who was once known for pulling a ball from a glass bowl is now carving out his lanes from palaces to royal courts and the Oval. His greatest achievement won’t be rebuilding the lost reputation but to understand where the real power lies and to make sure he is always beside it whenever the cameras roll.