Gianni Infantino’s Coronation: FIFA President Re-Elected Unopposed

Gianni Infantino has been re-elected FIFA president by acclamation for a four-year term until 2027. Soccer’s boss is seeking to stay in power until 2031.

Predictably, the election descended into a coronation as no ballot was required. Infantino won a new term by acclamation. It was a sweet victory for the FIFA president, hosted by Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s authoritarian head of state. In 2019, in Paris, Infantino was also elected by acclamation when one senior FIFA figure famously asked why one would queue if one could do it by acclamation. Infantino has nurtured Africa as his power base and it was the first time that an elective congress took place in Africa.

In his victory speech, he promised to ‘work hard to unite the world with football.’ He said: “Those who love me, I know there are so many, and those who hate me, I know there are a few, I love you all.”

There was indeed little dissent in Kigali: the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian FAs were engaged in a silent protest by not applauding the FIFA president upon his re-election. The German FA, DFB, was among the few FAs who openly decided not to back Infantino over a lack of transparency and communication as well as human rights issues.

Infantino emphasized how wealthy FIFA is and how the best is yet to come, with projected revenues of $11 billion in the next cycle – and Infantino promised even more billions through the Club World Cup, which would more than double the original forecast of the previous cycle. He said: “If a CEO did that, shareholders would want to keep the CEO forever – I’m here only for another 4 years.”

He spoke of a “strong and stable FIFA” that weathered the storm of Covid-19 from a very “solid” position. “I promised you that we were also going to increase our revenues. To be honest I was not so sure we were going to achieve that. We set an ambitious target of $6,4 billion but our revenues have gone up to a record $7.5 billion in a period that was hit by Covid-19,” said Infantino.

Having outperformed its conservative budget to post a $7.6 billion income, Infantino claimed that the organization is “trusted by everyone”, sponsors and institutions alike.

But there was some distrust in FIFA’s own ranks. The Norwegian FA and its president Lise Klaveness, who delivered a courageous speech at the Congress last year, had submitted a proposal to the Congress for Fifa to debate whether the world federation has fulfilled its obligations on human rights following the controversial World Cup in Qatar. On Wednesday, eight international unions voiced grave concern over the deteriorating human rights and labour conditions in the Gulf country.

She did not clap during the standing ovation for Infantino. At present, Klaveness is campaigning for a seat on the UEFA executive committee.

The vast majority however backed Infantino, grateful for the money FIFA has been distributing and looking forward to more development money with the new FIFA Forward Programme 3.0. As per FIFA Congress tradition, no questions from the floor were asked.

There was more good news for Infantino as he received the backing from the organisation’s Council to potentially extend his presidency until 2031. This would stretch the 12-year limit envisaged in reforms Infantino himself helped to draw up as part of the FIFA reform committee in his previous role as UEFA general secretary. The FIFA reform committee said that in the future the president should serve ‘no more than three terms of four years for a maximum of 12 years.’

At the World Cup in Qatar, Infantino had already said, ignoring the year that he took over from Sepp Blatter, that ‘I am in my first term of office and on March 16 when there is the election for the FIFA president in Kigali in Rwanda, my second term of office as FIFA president will start. There is a limit of three terms.’