Gianni Infantino

Gianni Infantino is a Swiss-Italian lawyer who has led FIFA since February 2016, winning election after the corruption scandal that removed Sepp Blatter. Previously UEFA Secretary General, he relocated to Riyadh in 2022 and expanded the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams, anchoring support among African and Asian voting blocs. His tenure has combined commercial expansion with governance controversies that test FIFA's political neutrality rules.

FairSquare filed a formal ethics complaint on 8 December 2025 alleging four breaches of FIFA's political neutrality rules, stemming from Infantino's public alignment with Donald Trump, including awarding Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize . In parallel, FIFA executives pressed him to seek a 39-day ICE moratorium from Trump to allow Iranian players, officials and fans to enter the US , while he publicly declared in Antalya on 1 April 2026 that Iran 'will be at the World Cup' .

Infantino cultivates relationships with heads of state that his predecessors conducted discreetly. His public friendship with Trump, his Riyadh residence and Gulf commercial partnerships test whether FIFA's neutrality rules are enforceable against the person who oversees their enforcement. The recurring pattern across his tenure: Infantino as dealmaker, promising inclusion while deferring the political cost to host governments.

On 6 May 2026 at the Vancouver Congress, Infantino told reporters that 500 million applications had been received for World Cup tickets, defending FIFA's pricing as market demand. He did not address the 163% price rise on comparable seats or the DG COMP Article 102 complaint that remained without a case number as of 11 May. With FFIRI's 10-point ultimatum outstanding and the EU complaint clock expired, Infantino's public posture remains one of managed confidence while institutional pressure mounts.

On 2 June 2026, the Norwegian Football Federation became the first national member federation to formally back FairSquare's ethics complaint, with president Lise Klaveness writing to FIFA's Ethics Committee in support of the Article 15 allegations . The complaint remains a complaint filed under FIFA's Code of Ethics; no charges have been laid and no finding of guilt has been made.

At the 30 April Vancouver Congress, Infantino declared 'Iran will be participating at the FIFA World Cup 2026, and of course, Iran will play in the United States', also announcing his candidacy for a fourth presidential term in March 2027 elections. Trump endorsed Iran's participation the same day. Nevertheless Iran's squad departed without US visas on 6 June, routing via Tijuana. The New York and New Jersey attorneys general issued subpoenas to FIFA on 27 May over MetLife Stadium ticketing, alleging undisclosed premium tiers drove price rises of roughly 25% across 90-plus matches . Secondary-market prices fell 37% in the final week before the opener, and the European Commission confirmed receipt of an Article 102 competition complaint on 28 May .

On 8 June 2026, former UEFA president Michel Platini filed a criminal complaint in Paris against Infantino and five others, including former Swiss attorney-general Michael Lauber and former FIFA legal director Marco Villiger. The charges are conspiracy to make a false accusation and influence-peddling; Platini alleges the scheme blocked his run for the FIFA presidency in 2015. Platini simultaneously filed a civil damages suit against FIFA . The Paris filing is legally distinct from the FairSquare ethics complaint, which was filed in December 2025 and alleges neutrality rule breaches; it addresses Conduct from 2015 alleged to have been orchestrated across Swiss institutions. Governance pressure now reaches Infantino from two separate legal directions as he opens the largest World Cup ever staged.

On 30 June, Infantino was named alongside FIFA as co-defendant in a $1bn federal lawsuit filed in Boston by Lotfollah Kaveh Afrasiabi, an Iranian-American academic previously charged by the US Department of Justice under FARA as an alleged unregistered agent of Iran, over Iran's elimination from the tournament. Iran's own football federation had filed no case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport as of 4 July. A third legal front now runs alongside the FairSquare ethics complaint and Platini's Paris case.

On 6 July, Infantino found himself at the centre of a reported presidential intervention in FIFA's own disciplinary process: President Trump allegedly telephoned him to lobby for Folarin Balogun's red-card ban to be lifted before the USA's last-16 tie against Belgium. FIFA's Appeal Committee suspended the ban within a day; neither Infantino nor the White House has confirmed the call took place. The reversal followed the same committee's decision nine days earlier to uphold Themba Zwane's ban with no published reasoning, a contrast Belgium's federation called 'astonishing' and one that adds disciplinary favouritism to the list of neutrality questions already raised by the FairSquare complaint and Platini's Paris case.

On 8 July, FairSquare said it would refer Infantino to the International Olympic Committee's Ethics Commission over a repeated breach of political-neutrality rules, after seven months of FIFA silence on its original December 2025 complaint over the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to Donald Trump. IOC president Kirsty Coventry said a day earlier that the IOC had received no filing.