The Trump administration has waded openly into a FIFA presidential contest that had until now been contained to football’s governance chambers, tying Washington directly to Gianni Infantino at the moment his opponents inside the game are hardening their line.
In an interview with The Athletic published in mid-August, Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026, said Infantino’s critics were driven by envy.
“People are jealous when people are very high achievers, and what Gianni Infantino has done for FIFA is he’s taken them to a whole new level that probably they didn’t think was possible,” Giuliani told the outlet.
He went further on the vote itself, warning that any confederation or federation president who moved against Infantino would regret it.
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“For any soccer confederation or football federation president that is thinking about not voting for Gianni Infantino, it would probably be one of the most foolish decisions of your professional life,” Giuliani said, as reported by Sports Illustrated.
“If Gianni Infantino doesn’t get re-elected unanimously, then whoever voted against him needs to get their head examined.”
He framed the campaign against Infantino as politically motivated, drawing a parallel with the treatment of Donald Trump, who appointed him to run the World Cup task force in May 2025.
What set off the revolt
The crisis erupted around Infantino’s plan to sell around 20% of FIFA Forward Enterprise, a new entity built to run the governing body’s commercial operations, with Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, among the proposed investors. Infantino scrapped the proposal in late July after the backlash, but the retreat did not restore his support.
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On 10 August, UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation issued a joint statement accusing Infantino of breaking trust through deception. The football associations of England, Wales, the Republic of Ireland and New Zealand have also said they will not back him.
Governance bodies do not deliver their members’ ballots. FIFA’s 211 associations each cast one individual vote at Congress, so the confederations’ public opposition is a political problem for Infantino, not a fixed stack of votes against him.
Ceferin warns of a challenger
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has become the loudest institutional voice against Infantino, though he has closed the door on running himself. Speaking on The Rest Is Politics: Leading podcast released on 24 August, Ceferin laid out where he thinks the row is heading.
“One option is that he realises that he doesn’t have the support. And the second option that he goes to the elections in March, but in that case, I think he will have a candidate against him,” Ceferin said.
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No formal challenger has yet filed. The names circulating in reporting include CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and CAF president Patrice Motsepe, though Motsepe has publicly backed Infantino. Paris Saint-Germain and European Club Association chairman Nasser al-Khelaifi, whose name was floated by several UEFA associations, has ruled himself out.
Rabat vote set for 18 March
The FIFA Congress votes for its president on 18 March 2027 in Rabat. The deadline for candidates to submit their nominations is 18 November 2026, leaving Infantino’s opponents less than three months to unite behind a name.
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