On 29 May 2026, Gianni Infantino’s presidential office at FIFA emailed Miami airport about three of his daughters. They were flying to Doha, Qatar, the following day, taking their dogs with them. His staff wanted an airport officer to help them through security.
The message went to the protocol department, which helps receive diplomats, dignitaries and official guests.
A Times investigation, based on airport records obtained through a freedom-of-information request, revealed the arrangement. Miami’s VIP service allows eligible travellers to be accompanied through check-in and security to the aircraft door. Officers can also request early boarding.
The airport’s handbook lists diplomats, senior government officials and heads of associations or nongovernmental organisations among those eligible. Infantino’s position puts him on that list. Being his daughters does not automatically put them on it too, and they were making a private journey without him.
The airport can nevertheless approve requests from people outside its usual VIP categories, provided staff are available and a senior official agrees.
The records examined by The Times show that their request was granted. It wasn’t the first time.
Somebody think of the children
The airport’s records go back to January 2024. The New York Post, which also obtained protocol logs, found 46 appearances for Infantino’s wife, Leena, compared with 24 for the president himself.
Across 95 records examined by the newspaper, 63 had no corresponding entry for Infantino on those dates. His sisters, Daniela and Mirella, also received assistance during the World Cup. The airport entered them as the president’s guests, extending the courtesy to another branch of the family.
FIFA told The Times that there was nothing wrong. Miami’s service was available to the heads of associations and nongovernmental organisations, it explained, so Infantino qualified. And their relatives could also ask for help, with the airport then deciding whether to provide it.
Miami backed that reading of its rules. Officials said they could consider requests from people outside the usual VIP categories, provided staff were available and a senior officer approved. The family’s access therefore depended on the airport agreeing to accommodate each request, rather than automatically inheriting the president’s eligibility.
FIFA’s spokesman twice emphasised that the assistance was free. The statement also had a reminder for the journalists examining the arrangements: “FIFA urges the media to act responsibly when reporting on children.”
Somebody think of the children!
Why was FIFA doing the organising?
Miami says its rules allowed it to provide an escort. The request came from people employed by FIFA, who had taken on the job of arranging assistance for the president’s family on a private journey. Their organisation has its own rules governing what officials can do for themselves and their relatives.
FIFA’s ethics code prohibits officials from using their positions for “private aims or gains”. Antoine Duval, a sports-law researcher at the Asser Institute in The Hague, told the Post that the arrangement could constitute abuse of position if Infantino had asked FIFA to organise his family’s private travel.
The president would then have put FIFA’s resources to work for a personal purpose.
However, despite Infantino’s reputation for grift, this action by Miami Airport is not automatically an unacceptable gift.
FIFA’s code allows benefits of symbolic or trivial value, provided they meet safeguards against conflicts of interest, improper influence and undue advantage.
FIFA’s own gifts guide includes free courtesies and favours. It also tells staff to consult its compliance team when benefits involving the same organisation, giver or recipient recur within a calendar year.
Repeated assistance is therefore something FIFA’s procedures say should be checked, but is not a breach in and of itself.
The published explanation by FIFA leaves those internal decisions unclear. FIFA says a former presidential adviser recommended making the requests, but does not explain what authorised its staff to organise assistance for relatives travelling independently, or whether the recurring benefits received a compliance review. Infantino is not known to have played a direct role in arranging this service.
The fast lane can be part of the deal
In September 2026, Brazil’s football delegation was preparing for an arrival in India that would spare it the regular immigration queue. The travelling party included Brazilian federation president Samir Xaud.
According to the Times of India, arrangements for the October friendly in Kolkata provided for passport and immigration checks inside the chartered aircraft for both senior federation officials and the team.
Essentially, the passport checks would come to them.
These were reported arrangements for an official visit, with no established rule breach. FIFA negotiates preferential treatment on a much larger scale.
For example, Vancouver’s World Cup hosting agreement committed the city to supporting special entry and exit procedures for FIFA delegations, VIPs and other people nominated by FIFA. The provisions included VIP waiting rooms, rapid passport control and luggage collection.
But even Vancouver had its limits.
In April 2026, police refused a request for a motorcade for Infantino during FIFA’s congress. The arrangements would have involved stopping traffic and closing intersections.
Deputy police chief Don Chapman said FIFA executives did not meet the protected-person criteria required. FIFA said local organisers had made the request, denied seeking a particular motorcade level, and said Infantino was neither aware nor involved.
Abuses do happen, however.
In May 2011, Mohamed bin Hammam was trying to unseat Sepp Blatter as FIFA president. The Asian Football Confederation chief needed support from the national associations that elected FIFA’s leader, and the Caribbean offered a valuable concentration of votes.
But his campaign had encountered a practical difficulty. Denied a US visa, he could not address a football congress in Miami. Jack Warner, then a FIFA vice-president and president of the Caribbean Football Union, agreed to assemble Caribbean officials in Trinidad instead.
Bin Hammam would pay for the meeting, including their travel and accommodation.
Warner was also Trinidad and Tobago’s works and transport minister, and he helped arrange his visitor’s entry. According to a Sunday Express investigation, published in 2014, he requested visa exemptions for Bin Hammam and his delegation before their private jet arrived on 9 May. Airport protocol staff met them off the aircraft and took them to a VIP lounge. Sources told the newspaper that their hand luggage had not been screened.
The following day, at Port of Spain’s Hyatt Regency hotel, Bin Hammam delivered a 45-minute campaign speech. After he left the room, Warner announced that delegates could collect gifts. Caribbean Football Union staff subsequently offered representatives envelopes containing $40,000 in cash apiece. Some were told the money was a contribution from the union towards developing football in their countries.
FIFA concluded that the cash was intended to buy support for Bin Hammam’s presidential bid and banned him for life. He denied wrongdoing, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned that ban in 2012. The panel accepted that the cash offers had occurred, but found insufficient evidence to establish that Bin Hammam had supplied the money as bribes.