Infantino’s 2026 has been loud. His first serious challenger is pitching a quiet campaign.

Kohzo Tashima, 68, the honorary president of the Japan Football Association and a member of the FIFA Council since 2015, confirmed on Thursday that he will run against Gianni Infantino at the 77th FIFA Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on 18 March 2027.

JFA board members voted unanimously to back him.

Tashima’s pitch is pointedly understated. He told reporters at the announcement that his bid was “not about winning or losing but about conveying to the world the honest, sound and upright attitude that Japanese football has built.”

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He added that he was running to make an appeal to the world about “values that we have protected.”

UEFA’s long hunt lands on Tashima

For months, European football’s governing body has been looking for a serious challenger to Infantino before the 18 November nomination deadline. Tashima is understood to have moved with UEFA’s blessing, and held talks with UEFA officials at last month’s Asian Football Confederation congress in Tokyo.

Confederations do not control how their member associations vote. Each of FIFA’s 211 federations casts its own ballot, and a candidate needs 106 votes to win outright. Each contender also needs formal endorsements from at least five member FAs and must pass an eligibility check by a three-member FIFA-appointed panel.

The World Cup plan that triggered the revolt

The spark for Tashima’s run was Infantino’s short-lived FIFA Forward Enterprise proposal, a commercial subsidiary that would have sold stakes in future World Cup profits to private investors. UEFA’s member associations agreed to boycott all FIFA competitions, including the 2027 Women’s World Cup and the 2030 men’s tournament, until the plan was withdrawn. Infantino scrapped the proposal on 1 August.

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A senior adviser, former US Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro, stepped down over the row.

Seven caps and a seat on the Council

Tashima is a former Japan international with seven caps, and served as JFA president from 2016 to 2024 before moving to the honorary role. He has sat on FIFA’s Council since 2015, which makes him an incumbent-era insider rather than an outsider. The Guardian, which first reported the UEFA backing, described him as widely respected.

Nominations close on 18 November. Infantino, who announced in April that he would stand for a fourth term, is unchanged in his intention to run.

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