The Italoswiss would remain at the top of the world football hierarchy until 2027
After taking office in 2016 as president of a FIFA rocked by scandals, Italoswiss Gianni Infantino seems to have secured his reelection, this Thursday in Kigali, where the 73rd Congress of the football's top organization takes place.
Infantino prepares to leave Rwanda with a new mandate for four more years, in which he plans to carry out his new projects.
The delegates from the 211 member federations of FIFA will have limited decision-making power: to reelect by acclamation the 52-year-old leader, who, like his previous election in 2019, is the only candidate, or to symbolically show disapproval.
The man who was the trusted partner of Michel Platini at UEFA between 2009 and 2016 would therefore continue at the top of the world football hierarchy until 2027.
The FIFA statutes now allow a maximum of three four-year terms in office, but Infantino has already laid the groundwork to potentially stay until 2031. In mid-December, he stated that he was "still in his first term" since his 2016-2019 period was incomplete.
Redistribution
Regarding football governance, Infantino's last term has been marked by a broad reform of player transfers - the creation of an agent license, limitation of their commissions -, the creation of maternity leave for all professional players, and the regulation of disciplinary procedures for victims of sexual violence.
Infantino can also rely on a solid financial balance, with an 18% increase in revenue and a 45% increase in reserves in the 2019-2022 cycle compared to the previous year, allowing FIFA to further increase its grants to confederations and federations.
In an attempt to make football "truly global" when European clubs dominate the top talents, the organization distributes the same amounts to different national federations. Each of them also has one vote in the Congress.
As long as the president satisfies the 35 Central American federations - including numerous Caribbean islands - or the 54 African federations, he can afford to stand up to powerful European nations, for example.
Infantino, for example, had a confrontation with those countries with a biennial World Cup project, which he ended up renouncing last year, or by forbidding several European teams from wearing an inclusive "One Love" armband during last year's World Cup in Qatar as a gesture of support for LGBTQ+ rights.
Expanded Club World Cup
The Norwegian Football Federation promises to provide the only dissenting note in the Congress. It has included a discussion on "reparations in case of human rights violations" related to FIFA competitions on the agenda. Families of workers who have died or been injured in the works for the Qatar World Cup have been claiming compensation for a long time.
European leaders have not been able to agree on promoting a common candidacy, and Gianni Infantino's flagship project for the next term - the expansion of the men's World Cup from 32 to 48 teams, starting with the 2026 edition (in the United States, Canada, and Mexico) - is already certain.
Last December 16th, FIFA decided to expand the Club World Cup from seven teams per year to a competition of 32 teams to be held every four years, starting in 2025. Infantino has been trying to boost that project for years, which in Europe is seen as a competitor to the lucrative Champions League.
The plan for an expanded Club World Cup could therefore reopen divisions in football: the World Leagues Forum, which brings together around forty leagues, denounced the "unilateral decisions" of FIFA in an "already overloaded" calendar that threatens the health of players, the balance of clubs, and the economy of national competitions. AFP