Two Decades Atop World Football: Gianni Infantino's Career in 45 Controversies

As UEFA considers examining Infantino's entire career, Sports and Crime Briefing works backwards through the allegations, investigations, governance battles and political disputes over two decades

Gianni Infantino took up his role at the head of FIFA in February 2016. Many hoped he would restore order to global football following years of wrongdoing and a highly controversial final term for his predecessor, Sepp Blatter.

Ten years on, Infantino is fighting to keep his career. His plan to operate the World Cup and FIFA’s main commercial operations through FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) met with revolt.

With three confederations, half of the six that make up FIFA, calling for his head, Infantino removed FFE and has apologised for the plan. However, he has defended FFE’s core goals and refused to resign from his position as FIFA President.

The opposition to him is broad. UEFA, AFC and CONCACAF, representing European, Asian and North American football, refuse to drop their threatened boycott of FIFA competitions until Infantino is gone.

But CAF and Conmebol (Africa and South America) remain firmly on his side, as do many member nations, especially smaller ones who have seen their revenues skyrocket during Infantino’s tenure.

World leaders are similarly divided. Canada’s Mark Carney and the UK’s Andy Burnham have called for Infantino to go, while Trump, who received a FIFA Peace Prize from the Italian executive, has defended him to the hilt.

But the immediate dispute may now reach further back. UEFA’s lawyers may go back to the beginnings of Infantino’s career.

The immediate dispute may now reach further back. UEFA’s lawyers have demanded that 18 FIFA officials, including Infantino, preserve material about FFE to be used in potential future proceedings. The Telegraph has reported that UEFA is also considering a full review of Infantino’s 16 years spent atop European then world football.

So we went digging. The list of allegations is not a continuous corruption case, it is incredibly varied. It is also not meant to be a ruling on Infantino’s guilt or innocence, but as a journey through a career riddled with a surprisingly consistent stream of allegations of corruption, cronyism, and governance clashes.

We initially found 76 separate controversies. We narrowed them down to 45 as instances of related behavior were combined. Sometimes, matters that came out in the same scandal were separated when they tackled unrelated issues. Where possible, we have always sought to include Infantino or FIFA’s statements about the case.