Five weeks. That is the time Arsène Wenger has left to make up his mind.

The Frenchman, who has served as FIFA’s chief of global football development since 2019, is being urged by senior officials in European football and other opponents of the current president to put his name forward against Gianni Infantino, according to reporting first carried by The Sunday Times. Candidates must file their nominations, each backed by at least five of FIFA’s 211 member associations, by 18 November 2026.

Wenger has not publicly declared his candidacy. He has not ruled it out either.

The August break that opened the door

What has made the 76-year-old a credible challenger in the first place is a split with Infantino that only became public in August. The president’s so-called FIFA Forward Enterprise project would have sold roughly 20% of the governing body’s commercial operations to private investors in a deal valued around $4.2 billion. UEFA’s 55 member associations opposed it, Concacaf and the AFC joined in objecting, and Infantino scrapped the proposal on 31 July.

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Wenger, who said he had only learned about the plan through media reports, publicly backed the withdrawal.

He called it “absolutely necessary and beyond question” and insisted he believed in “a FIFA that operates with transparency and integrity.”

Those words put daylight between him and the man who hired him, and for Infantino’s opponents they were the signal that Wenger could be persuaded to run.

A field forming, not an alliance

He would not be alone on the ballot. Ramon Vega, the former Switzerland and Tottenham defender, has already declared his intention to stand and faces the same 18 November deadline. Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, who ran against Infantino in 2016, has been mentioned again in the current round of speculation.

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The three are not a coordinated ticket. Each would need to assemble his own backing from the 211 member associations, which vote individually on a one-member-one-vote basis at the FIFA Congress.

UEFA’s criticism, not UEFA’s votes

That distinction matters. UEFA’s 55 members have been openly critical of Infantino’s leadership and called for new direction at FIFA during their Berlin meeting, but confederations do not deliver blocs of votes at a FIFA election. Each national association casts its own ballot and can, and often does, break from the official line of its continental body.

Infantino, who was re-elected unopposed in 2023, retains strong support elsewhere. The Confederation of African Football’s 54 member associations have pledged what the body described as unconditional backing for his 2027-2031 term.

Whether Wenger stands or not will be known no later than 18 November.

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