How Gianni Infantino became football’s unlikely conqueror
How Gianni Infantino became football’s unlikely conqueror
Tom MorganSat, June 6, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC
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Gianni Infantino's relationship with Donald Trump, the US president, has attracted fierce criticism - Jim Watson/AFP
"Genial and unassuming," says one leading English football executive of the Gianni Infantino he knew in Uefa's legal affairs department in the 2000s. "Genial, but otherwise unrecognisable," he says of football's de facto ruler now.
Past colleagues are as startled as anybody by the otherworldly existence of the Fifa president these days. He arrived as the governing body's bright new hope in 2016 and flew to one early function on EasyJet. Now he makes occasional use of a private jet on loan from Qatar. His flying schedules have become exhausting, zig-zagging between Miami, New York, the Middle East and Europe within a single week. Friends observe how he has given up trying to adjust to time zones on most jobs.
We are a World Cup cycle on since he told the world he was feeling "gay", "Qatari" and like a "migrant worker". It is anyone's guess how he is feeling now. Press conferences since have been vanishingly rare but the expectation is that he will address the media a day before kick-off in Mexico this week.
Should it go ahead as scheduled, Infantino will finally have the opportunity to set out in detail why he believes this is a World Cup that hinges largely on the favour of one man: Donald Trump.
Ends always justify means for Infantino
Profiteering around tickets and transport, which has led to fan boycotts, makes senior figures, even within the organisation, wince. The most expensive event in history is days away and soon the thrills and spills will drown out the dissenting voices.
But Infantino has much to explain about his "crucial" friendship with the US president, which has politicised sporting administration like never before. In December, came the peace prize that provoked global scorn.
Infantino (right) was heavily criticised for his decision to award Donald Trump with the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize - Evan Vucci/AP
By February, he thought it might be funny to try on a Maga-style red USA hat.
Infantino used Fifa's inaugural Board of Peace meeting to show his support for Trump - Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
A group of Fifa staff, meanwhile, have their feet under the table in a gleaming office in Trump Tower. Infantino's acolytes dismiss all peace prize criticism, point out Infantino has previously worn a Mexican sombrero and say fair market value is paid on the New York office. But most in the wider world and even Sepp Blatter, his controversy-ridden predecessor, remain aghast. "He is trying to go against me," he told Telegraph Sport. "I cannot understand it."
An alliance at any cost with Trump, but those who know him best say this pragmatic relationship reflects the real Gianni. Infantino, say friends, is not a political beast. He would have tea with a notorious dictator of any leaning if it allowed him to build a football pitch.
"The ends have always justified the means," adds another European football figure who worked at Uefa, charting Infantino's unlikely route from a small Alpine town to the pinnacle of sporting power. Utilising what he has available has always been the way. As a freckly, ginger adolescent, he became president of his local amateur club, FC Brig-Glis, on a mandate that his mother would wash the team kits. Ever since, he has used all necessary tools to get the results he has needed.
Gianni Infantino as a child and young man
By the end of a steady rise through Uefa – from 2000 in legal, to becoming deputy general secretary in 2007 and then secretary general in 2009 – his opportunist instincts were evident. There had been little sign that Infantino was ever pursuing the Fifa's top job until December 2015. But after his boss, Michel Platini, was undone by scandal, Infantino was thrust forward as Uefa's preferred candidate in circumstances that planted seeds of tensions that fester today.
Sources close to that election campaign said the typically resourceful Infantino ran to become president at Fifa on a strikingly similar playbook that Platini had been planning to use.
Infantino had persuaded Europe to rally behind him on a mandate to rinse Fifa clean of its reputation for greed and corruption, but also on a private understanding that he would continue to have Uefa's best interests at heart. Uefa subsequently supported Infantino with €500,000 (£438,000) to support his campaign. But 10 years on from his promise that "I will work tirelessly to bring football back to Fifa, and Fifa back to football", few of his supporters in the European club game remain in his corner.
"He was a good No 2, but is not a good No 1," Platini told The Guardian in January. "He worked very well at Uefa but he has one problem: he likes the rich and powerful people, the ones with money. It's his character."
Friends in high places
Infantino has the earning power to hobnob with the rich and famous these days. His basic annual salary remains unchanged against the previous year at 2.6m Swiss francs (£2.46m), but his bonus rose by 550,000 to 2.2m Swiss francs in 2025 – partly triggered by the launch of the month-long Club World Cup.
Staying on the right side of autocratic leaders has become his modus operandi over successive terms. Prior to forming close bonds with Qatar, Trump and 2034 host Saudi Arabia, his attitude to getting on side with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, offered a taste of what was to come. Infantino said he felt "like a child in a toy shop" during one visit to the Kremlin. After the 2018 World Cup, he collected a Russian Order of Friendship from Putin.
Infantino with Vladimir Putin (right) at the draw for the group stages of the 2018 World Cup in Russia - Lars Baron/Getty Images
But old European contemporaries feel most dismay at the extent of Infantino's back-slapping and mutual praise with Trump. Lise Klaveness, the Norwegian FA president and Uefa executive committee member, talked last year of "fundamental values" being "at stake". "I'm very worried," she has said about the general direction of of the game. Uefa itself accused him of prioritising "private political interests" 13 months ago when he turned up late for his own congress in Paraguay after a meeting with his pal.
Infantino laughs off such criticism privately, even when state leaders joke in his ear that they are jealous of his White House access. Trump, whose son Barron put goalposts in the first lady's garden during his first term, first hosted Infantino in 2018. An immediate impression was made by handing Trump red and yellow penalty cards, joking they could be used on the press.
Infantino has been a regular visitor to the Oval Office in recent years - Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
But seasoned observers said their bond was cemented in 2020 as both men plotted uncertain political futures. At a dinner that January at the global economic summit in Davos, near Fifa's HQ in Zurich, Infantino first called Trump "my great friend". Back then, Infantino, from his Doha base, was aligning Fifa's sporting and commercial ties with Saudi Arabia, soon to replace the US as his most important ally.
For Infantino and Fifa, the bottom line offers proof that his approach to making friends and influencing people is worthwhile. He faced a storm of criticism over a contrived World Cup hosting vision which handed the 2030 tournament to cross-continent hosts, effectively enabling Saudi Arabia to secure 2034 uncontested. The Saudis, in turn, helped him lift his Club World Cup off the ground, having agreed a $1bn stake in streamer Dazn, which had footed the bill for an inflated TV rights deal.
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The Trump-Infantino marriage, meanwhile, is also helping Fifa's coffers grow at an unprecedented rate. Within a week of the US president being handed his peace prize last December, tickets went on sale and would rise to an average price of $1,603 (£1,175) on aggregating sites. The prices sparked global outrage but there was never any possibility of Trump taking issue with fans being ripped off. Trump claimed complete ignorance over pricing when the New York Post pointed out to him last month that he would need to spend at least $1,000 (£735) just to watch the USA's opening game against Paraguay.
In response to a World Cup final ticket listed on the secondary market for $2m (£1.47m), Fifa's president has joked he will "personally bring a hot dog and a Coke" to anyone willing to pay such a price. But privately within his camp there are known to be some regrets over the initial pricing system, and the backlash it has caused. It has been the easiest of sticks for his European enemies to beat him with.
Uefa, for example, is freezing ticket prices for Euro 2028 – meaning supporters will be able to buy five seats for the price of an average £133 single parking space at a US venue this summer. Fifa has been bruised by the furore in the US.
After damaging local headlines, Jennifer Davenport, the New Jersey attorney general, launched investigations a fortnight ago with her New York counterpart. "Fifa has turned buying a ticket to the World Cup into a gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity, and impossibly high prices," she said.
In a sign that Fifa knows mistakes have been made at this tournament, there are already quiet guarantees that prices will be back to normal and standardised across Portugal, Spain and Morocco.
Infantino not going anywhere
The outcry does nothing, however, to damage Infantino. Revenue of £10.3bn arrives in this cycle for its 211 members. You can bet your house now on his re-election next year as Infantino has delivered for his base. Across the first two cycles of the Fifa Forward project through to 2022, $2.8bn (£2.08bn) was made available for investment across the member associations on more than 1,600 projects. Overall, the distribution fund to member associations has grown eightfold during Infantino's 10-years.
Once again the ends justify the means for a 56-year-old who has spent a lifetime backing his own vision, an outsider since childhood, the son of Italian parents in a Swiss rural district rife with anti-immigrant resentment.
The difference now is that he is in his comfort-zone era at Fifa, whatever his critics say. His 2018 pledge that "it's very clear that politics should stay out of football and football should stay out of politics" is long forgotten.
Instead, Infantino is emboldened to make direct interventions into US domestic affairs and beyond, where he thinks there is advantage to be had. Speaking at the America Business Forum in Miami last year, he was eulogising the merits of Trump's agenda. "I think we should all support what he's doing because I think he's doing pretty good," he said. "And for Fifa even more."
Then, in May, came Infantino's bungled attempt to engineer a handshake between the Palestinian and Israeli delegates at congress. Even Blatter, during the heat of the firestorm around him, had managed to broker smoother scenes with the nations greeting each other in similarly contrived scenes in 2015. But Infantino is now living in his own world in a "different sphere", says Blatter.
Credit: FIFA via Reuters
Blatter, of course, has an obvious axe to grind. Sworn enemies of his are now Infantino's friends, including Loretta Lynch, the face of a long and complicated FBI criminal investigation. Lynch was US attorney general when she said 11 years ago that officials at football's world governing body had engaged in "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted" corruption.
In recent years, however, she appears to be taking pay cheques from Fifa, speaking at conferences about her "heartened" belief in Fifa's improvements. She is now so cosy with Infantino that she also appeared on Fifa's 10 years of Infantino video broadcast last year.
"Ten years of progress," that video boasts. "From taking over in the darkest days of the organisation's history, to preparing for the biggest sporting event the world has ever seen."
Biggest is best for Infantino at this supersized World Cup as a total of 104 matches are played over the coming weeks, up from 64 at the 2022 edition. More advertising opportunities than ever will allow drinks breaks permitting cutaways during the action. Even half-time will be stretching at the waist, with a Super Bowl-lite show expected to last 11 minutes. A clamour for extensive advertising space either side could easily take the entire stoppage to 20 minutes.
Players' unions threaten strikes, fans boycott and European clubs grumble, but Infantino remains steadfast in backing himself.
"My first 10 years as Fifa president have been a journey devoted entirely to football," he writes in the foreword to a new authorised biography, Forward – The Revolution of Football: The First 10 Years of Gianni Infantino at Fifa. "Every single day during the decade, at least once I have looked at a ball, touched it, played with it, or simply reflected on it, knowing it remains the most magical and meaningful object there is," he writes. "A crystal ball that helps us imagine the future."
Once this tournament is done, sources believe Infantino will press forward with a private ambition to secure 10 per cent of the annual club calendar ring-fenced for Fifa tournaments. Friends insist he will finally walk away from the governing body in 2031 – three years before kick off in Saudi Arabia.
Recently, the Swiss-Italian, fluent in French, German, Italian, Arabic, English, Portuguese and Spanish, has added Lebanese citizenship to his passport collection using special dispensation the nation grants for high-profile figures. The wife of his four children is Lebanese.
There is some suggestion he could eventually return to a boardroom role in the club game. But with untold wealth and friends in the highest places, there are endless options for the man that Trump calls "the King of Soccer". Only that crystal ball really knows what's next in store for football's unlikely conqueror.
Source: “AOL Sports”
