Former FIFA governance chief challenges Infantino’s eligibility for 2027 election

FIFA president Gianni Infantino is ineligible to seek another term in 2027 under the organisation’s statutes, according to its former governance committee chief, Miguel Maduro. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Maduro said Infantino’s three elections to the presidency meant he had reached the limit set by football’s global governing body.

The challenge comes two weeks before the deadline for candidates to enter the presidential election scheduled for March 2027. Human rights organisation FairSquare has written to FIFA member associations asking them to declare Infantino ineligible, renewing its argument that he has already served the maximum number of terms allowed.

The dispute centres on Infantino’s first period in charge, from 2016 to 2019. He was elected at an Extraordinary Congress after Sepp Blatter resigned and successfully argued that completing that interrupted mandate should not count towards his term limit. In December 2022, the FIFA Council unanimously confirmed that interpretation. FairSquare says the reasoning behind the decision has never been published.

Maduro, a Portuguese lawyer, said Article 33, paragraph two of FIFA’s statutes provides no exemption for a presidency lasting less than a full term. “It makes no distinction on whether these terms are complete terms or incomplete terms,” he said. Maduro was removed from his FIFA role in 2017 after blocking Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko’s re-election to its top committee.

Despite the eligibility challenge, Infantino’s campaign received a significant boost in October when the head of Asian football endorsed him. Support across the confederations has put him in a commanding position among FIFA’s 211 voting members as the candidacy deadline approaches.

Maduro also questioned FIFA’s ability to hold its president accountable, particularly over interpretations of rules from which the president benefits. He argued that checks on presidential authority had failed because the bodies responsible for overseeing FIFA’s leadership had lost independence. Recent evidence, he said, pointed to ineffective oversight rather than meaningful limits on presidential power.

FairSquare said it had approached 52 member associations, with none yet responding to its appeal. Its director and cofounder, Nicholas McGeehan, told Reuters that the organisation would meet Norwegian football officials on Wednesday, November 4. Norway’s football association, the NFF, previously supported FairSquare’s formal complaint against Infantino concerning a breach of political neutrality rules.

McGeehan said the NFF’s engagement with FIFA’s Ethics Committee and Governance Committee gave FairSquare hope that it would take a lead on the eligibility dispute. He also called on other associations to act, saying responsibility for upholding basic rules should not repeatedly fall to Norway. Maduro attributed associations’ reluctance to act independently to what he called a “climate of fear”.