A day earlier than his unopposed reelection as president of soccer’s governing physique in March 2023, Gianni Infantino’s motorcade fought its manner by way of Rwanda’s capital as thunder and lightning loomed so he might take the sphere alongside the nation’s president and retired gamers in a star-studded exhibition match.
The following day, the stands at Kigali Pelé Stadium had been almost empty. However Infantino was again, watching with curiosity as groups of amputees, most survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, confronted off in a soccer recreation organized by the Paralympic Committee of Rwanda. After the match, as a black Mercedes limousine idled outdoors, somebody rushed to Infantino with a request from gamers and coaches that he return to the sphere one final time. Infantino jumped up, smiled contentedly, bounded down the steps to hold medals across the winners’ necks.
With the identical mix of relentless enthusiasm and a focus to image-making, Infantino has made himself a participant in American politics. Over the previous yr he has barnstormed the nation’s energy facilities, from metropolis halls to the White Home, charming politicians and meting out cash from FIFA’s well-funded treasury to help native tasks.
Infantino confirmed off his most necessary new political ally this month at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the place he introduced President Donald Trump to the sphere to assist award FIFA’s Membership Winners Cup to champion Chelsea. One yr from now, Infantino will return to the identical area, nearly actually with Trump by his facet, handy out a good greater prize — the World Cup.
However attending to the ultimate on July 19 won’t be straightforward, because the 104-match event — which will likely be co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico — is fraught with political and coverage challenges. Organizers hope to welcome tens of millions of international nationals amid Trump’s border crackdown and safe areas the place regulation enforcement brings little expertise corralling hordes of unruly soccer followers, all with out bankrupting native governments.
Infantino, the 55-year previous son of a Swiss-Italian railman, has already demonstrated savvy in navigating American authorities at each stage. He maintains a bromance with Trump by way of Oval Workplace visits and ostentatious gift-giving. He woos the leaders of the Democratic-led cities and states the place a majority of matches will likely be performed, with out alienating a White Home clashing with them on different points.
“You may say he’s a politician,” stated Peter Tomozawa, CEO of the Seattle 2026 World Cup Organizing Committee. “However within the different sense, he’s simply attempting to advertise what good soccer can do the world over.”
Not everyone seems to be happy. Simply as Infantino drew criticism for cozying as much as Russia’s Kremlin and Qatar’s monarchy when these nations hosted the World Cup, his embrace of the polarizing American president has not sat properly with FIFA’s members. When Infantino selected to journey with Trump as a substitute of attending a gathering of the game’s high governing physique as scheduled, the group representing Europe’s soccer federations accused Infantino of prioritizing “personal political pursuits,” saying that “does the sport no service and seems to place its pursuits second.”
The street from Zurich
In a sure manner, Infantino owes his present publish to the US.
Within the early hours of Might 27, 2015, plainclothes Swiss police brokers walked into the luxurious Zurich resort the place FIFA was holding its annual assembly. They had been there on the behest of the U.S. Division of Justice, which had been investigating corruption within the soccer world for 5 years. Police nabbed a number of group officers as Baur au Lac resort porters held white bedsheets in an try and defend the scene from the press. In the end, 14 officers and advertising executives had been indicted in American courts on costs of fraud, bribery and cash laundering.
The investigation toppled the game’s high leaders. Sepp Blatter, who had served as FIFA’s president for 17 years introduced his resignation simply days after being reelected to a different time period. Months later, a suspicious fee Blatter had made to Michel Platini, Europe’s high soccer official, triggered a Swiss Lawyer Basic investigation. That October, FIFA’s Ethics Committee provisionally suspended each males; the next bans ended their careers.
That cleared a path for Infantino, who had moved his manner up the forms of the European federation UEFA earlier than serving six years as its basic secretary. (A federation’s president resembles its head of state, the final secretary its head of presidency.) He was seen as Platini’s right-hand man, his bald head recognizable to followers worldwide from televised ceremonies wherein Infantino drew the lottery balls that decided the Champions League draw.
However the polyglot lawyer was additionally a sensible dealmaker, and he used these expertise to propel himself to the FIFA presidency, wherein the 207 member nations every have a vote. At a particular session known as in February 2016 because of the corruption case, Infantino constructed on his European base with help from North and South American associations, profitable 115 votes in a runoff.
The primary two main tournaments over which the brand new president would preside had been already set. The following World Cups had been assigned to Russia, in 2018, and Qatar, in 2022 — two autocracies whose human-rights abuses Infantino papered over as he sidled as much as the nations’ leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar.
Again in 2023, at Rwanda’s Pelé Stadium, one in all Infantino’s longtime inner-circle advisers spoke at size in regards to the FIFA president’s public picture. “This complete concept of shoulder-rubbing with dictators? It’s not actual. Generally the U.S. president is Joe Biden, generally it’s Donald Trump. Gianni can’t change that,” the adviser stated, leaning again within the stands. “He’s not involved in politics — solely in soccer.”
The native technique of a world recreation
The event’s 2026 installment represents a really completely different political problem for Infantino. The U.S., Mexico and Canada — who had been awarded the video games in 2018 after mounting a joint bid — can be the primary triple co-hosts. And not using a federal sports activities ministry, as exists in lots of the different nations which have hosted the World Cup, FIFA might take a hands-on function shaping the American authorities infrastructure that might coordinate all the pieces past a stadium’s perimeter.
Infantino made his first journey to the Oval Workplace in 2018, accompanied by U.S. Soccer Federation President Carlos Cordeiro. Infantino handed over a referee’s pink card that Trump loved brandishing for cameras and a soccer jersey emblazoned TRUMP 26 — regardless that it was then unimaginable that beneath any circumstances Trump can be in workplace when the event happened. However having a passionate supporter within the White Home can be helpful through the years of preparation.
“They had been calling me continually attempting to get me to return on board,” Trump recounted on the time. “However it solely took one name as a result of once I heard ‘World Cup,’ I needed to do it.”
However there was solely a lot Infantino might accomplish in Washington. (In contrast to latest World Cup host nations, the US will likely be notable for not internet hosting any matches or official occasions in its capital metropolis.) In contrast to in 1994, when the U.S. hosted the World Cup for the primary and solely time, there isn’t a central organizing committee to supervise occasions in numerous cities and coordinate fundraising and industrial rights throughout them. As an alternative, 16 American, Canadian and Mexican host cities have particular person relationships with FIFA.
Worldwide soccer can be nearly ranging from scratch, and Infantino started a yearslong marketing campaign of laying down roots for FIFA, one journey at a time. The footloose Infantino confirmed up nearly anyplace there could be cameras, along with his personal crew that paperwork each speech and handshake to his 3 million Instagram followers.
“I feel in right this moment’s world, with out [his style], you in all probability aren’t going to achieve success. However there’s a big quantity of ego, energy and affect behind it. It surprises me and lots of others that he has grow to be the face of not solely FIFA, however its model, its occasions,” stated an individual near event planning granted anonymity because of worry of retribution. “Day-after-day, it’s about Gianni Infantino, which is de facto uncommon on the earth of worldwide sports activities.”’
When Infantino went to Seattle in October 2024, Tomozawa introduced Washington Gov. Jay Inslee for a tour of the Seattle Sounders coaching facility earlier than introducing him to the Puyallup Tribe, a federally acknowledged sovereign nation of greater than 5,000 members, and its chair, Invoice Sterud. “It was a splendidly heat assembly,” stated Tomozawa. “I do know he’s obtained this persona and all that, however he’s a really, very good, caring man. Straightforward to speak to.”
In June, FIFA inaugurated its first Membership World Cup, a 32-team membership competitors established partly as a warmup for its quadrennial showcase event. For his half, Infantino used this summer time’s monthlong occasion as a option to deepen FIFA’s footprint in native governments nationwide. He met with Mayors Freddie O’Connell of Nashville, Tennessee, and Vi Lyles of Charlotte, North Carolina, on journeys to their cities, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott whereas in Dallas. He chaperoned Vice President JD Vance to a match in Cincinnati, and attended a personal fundraising dinner for the New York New Jersey Host Committee with Govs. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Kathy Hochul of New York, and New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams. In Los Angeles, Infantino appeared with police and fireplace chiefs from Pasadena and Los Angeles for a ticket giveaway to those that had battled the cities’ wildfires.
In every metropolis he visited, Infantino pledged $1 million in FIFA funds to help native soccer improvement applications. He sat for interviews with native information broadcasts and sports-talk radio hosts whilst he largely shunned nationwide and worldwide press. (FIFA declined to make Infantino accessible for an interview for this story.)
“We are going to deliver them right here as a result of we all know that you’re such a welcoming metropolis,” Infantino instructed Philadelphia’s Metropolis Council. “They’ll fill the stadium, however they can even fill the town with pleasure.” That mix of statesman-like grandiosity and hyper-local politicking has made Infantino an unlikely participant in U.S. civic life, and a helpful one for figures in each events.
However a perpetual eagerness to please has precipitated Infantino political issues earlier than. “Right now I really feel Qatari,” Infantino stated at a press convention on the eve of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. “Right now I really feel Arab. Right now I really feel African. Right now I really feel homosexual. Right now I really feel disabled. Right now I really feel a migrant employee.” The remark managed to offend nearly everybody — human-rights organizations which had taken situation with using migrant labor in stadium building, LGBTQ+ activists who believed the remark trivialized the character of sexual orientation, social conservatives who perceived a company government going woke, even a feminine reporter who famous that he had omitted gender in his litany of human id. (“I really feel like a girl,” Infantino shortly added.)
“An important factor is that personally I’ve nothing towards him — he’s not a criminal,” stated one member of the FIFA council, the group’s fundamental decision-making physique, granted anonymity to talk candidly. “However the issue is his self-confidence: he loves dictators and billionaires. When he sees folks with cash, he melts.”
Miami clout machine
Behind the shiny black doorways and ornate gold swirls of a Coral Gables industrial constructing sits Infantino’s American energy middle. It’s technically a satellite tv for pc of the Zurich headquarters the place since its 1904 founding FIFA has set the foundations of the sport, managed the worldwide switch of gamers and offered help to enhance infrastructure, coaching and entry to soccer worldwide.
In Miami, FIFA has quietly constructed out a 60,000-square foot area that used to accommodate HBO, the place 400 folks now work for the federation. There are authorized and compliance departments completely relocated from Zurich, a brand new digital-communications staff and all the operations and planning employees for each this yr and subsequent yr’s tournaments. FIFA, which this month opened a separate workplace in New York’s Trump Tower, says it plans to take care of a U.S. headquarters in Miami after the 2026 video games.
“There’s FIFA with all capital letters, after which there’s FIFA lowercase,” stated one particular person concerned in World Cup preparations granted anonymity to protect working relationships. “Zurich is FIFA. Miami is ‘fifa’ except Gianni is on the town.” Infantino is guided by a small circle of advisers, together with Portuguese public-relations strategist Onofre Costa, who ran Infantino’s 2016 election marketing campaign earlier than taking cost of FIFA’s communications. One other is the Dutch-Swedish lawyer Mattias Grafström, who grew to become FIFA’s secretary basic in 2024, is routinely described by specialists as “the second-most-powerful man in world soccer,” main day-to-day operations whereas the president travels.
Above all is Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs associate who resigned from the U.S. Soccer Federation president in 2020 amid a backlash associated to the equal pay lawsuit filed by the ladies’s nationwide staff. He has since returned to Infantino’s facet as a senior adviser, a Miami-based fixer who maintains U.S. relationships by vetting conferences and coordinating his schedule.
Cordeiro is supported by a sturdy Miami-based government-affairs staff stocked with former White Home and Hill staffers. After reporting no federal lobbying bills in 2023, the FIFA World Cup committee employed the agency Arnold & Porter, and spent $535,000 in federal lobbying bills that yr, greater than the NCAA, up from zero in 2023. Most of the host cities have their very own contracts with different companies for World Cup-related lobbying.
The Miami workplace has grow to be a spot for Infantino to host everybody from members of the Florida Bar Affiliation to high federal officers, together with FBI Director Kash Patel and Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi, who got here to seek the advice of with Infantino about World Cup safety. (Through the 2015 terror assaults throughout Paris, three suicide bombers detonated explosives outdoors the stadium the place French President François Hollande was watching a match between France and Germany.)
This time, when American regulation enforcement was on the door, FIFA eagerly prolonged a welcome.
Trump wins a trophy
Upon the ultimate whistle of the Membership World Cup on July 13, Infantino led Trump from the posh field the place that they had watched Chelsea defeat Paris Saint-Germain with their wives and three of Trump’s Cupboard members. The 2 males descended to the sphere of New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the place Chelsea’s gamers had gathered to rejoice their victory.
Trump pocketed a gold medal Infantino handed him and helped current a duplicate of the Membership Winners Cup trophy, then lingered awkwardly whereas gamers impatiently waited for the politician to yield the stage.
The unique trophy, an oversize 24-carat gold bauble that Infantino appreciated to level out had been designed by Tiffany & Co., remained within the White Home. Infantino had introduced it to the White Home for its public unveiling in March, after which the trophy by no means left.
“We put it within the Oval Workplace after which I stated: ‘When are you going to select up the trophy,” Trump defined in a midgame interview with DAZN, a broadcaster backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund which received rights to air the event on the identical time the nation was controversially awarded the 2034 World Cup. “He stated, ‘We’re by no means going to select it up, you’ll be able to have it without end within the Oval Workplace.”
Whereas Infantino made efforts to domesticate relationships with Biden, together with by hiring former White Home staffers to FIFA’s Miami-based government-affairs staff, he received restricted entry to the administration’s principals. At the same time as staff-level planning continued with out incident, Infantino had little to indicate for his entry past a grainy picture taken on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Indonesia, in 2022.
However that has modified with Trump’s return to the White Home. In January, Infantino traveled to Mar-a-Lago to satisfy privately with the incoming president, and attended a Washington rally the evening earlier than the inauguration the place Trump talked about him by title 5 instances. Through the swearing-in ceremony itself, Infantino sat just some rows behind Trump, seen all through the speech. In March, Trump known as Infantino “the king of soccer.”
“He could be essentially the most linked man on the earth,” stated Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz. “, the Dos Equis commercials, essentially the most attention-grabbing man on the earth? That’s him. This man is having this second, and he’s capitalizing on it.”
Whereas Infantino is profitable help among the many American political class, he nonetheless has to regulate his core constituency: the 211 nationwide federations who every have one vote when he faces reelection as FIFA president in 2027. They embody not solely the three North American nations with a stake in subsequent yr’s tournaments, but in addition the almost 20 — largely in Africa and Asia — whose residents will possible be prohibited from coming into to the US for the event due to Trump’s ban on journey from nations deemed a nationwide safety risk. (The administration has carved out gamers and coaches from nations like Iran, the primary to earn qualification to subsequent yr’s cup, however has not made any concessions for followers.) Then there are scores of different nations whose governments have discovered themselves at odds with Trump over points various from tariffs to Mideast coverage.
But these considerations are sometimes quieted by the proceeds Infantino channels again to member associations by way of the FIFA Ahead program, utilizing FIFA’s income from Membership World Cup and different occasions together with subsequent yr to help improvement applications the world over.
“He walks a troublesome tightrope,” the FIFA official stated, “attempting to stability so many conflicting points on the earth of soccer and geopolitics, and he manages to take action fairly deftly, in a manner the place he’s real, genuine, but in addition in a position to construct the connections that he must.”
In Might, FIFA postponed its annual congress in Asunción, Paraguay, to accommodate its president’s plans to accompany Trump on his first main abroad journey, to the Persian Gulf, and transformed a session of its governing council to a digital assembly in order that Infantino might be a part of remotely. From Infantino’s perspective, it was a worthwhile trade-off: he received a front-row seat on the Saudi-U.S. Funding Discussion board in Riyadh and a standing ovation from the group at Trump’s urging from the rostrum.
When Infantino lastly did arrive in South America, by personal jet, he was three hours late, angering European officers together with UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, who stormed out of the venue upon Infantino’s arrival.
“To have the timetable modified on the final minute for what seems to be merely to accommodate personal political pursuits, does the sport no service and seems to place its pursuits second,” UEFA defined in an announcement.
Infantino’s final reward stands out as the existence of White Home Job Power on the FIFA World Cup 2026, which Trump introduced in Might. The duty drive, which incorporates Cupboard officers, senior presidential aides and is led by longtime Trump sports activities adviser Andrew Giuliani — affords Infantino a direct channel to the best ranges of the U.S. authorities by way of Cordeiro, appointed a senior adviser.
Officers have used the brand new establishment to strain the State Division round visa backlogs and work with Homeland Safety to observe security protocols at Membership World Cup matches. The reconciliation megabill Trump signed into regulation earlier this month included $625 million for World Cup safety prices.
“FIFA is an official supplier of happiness to humanity,” Infantino stated on the process drive’s inaugural assembly, from a seat subsequent to Trump. “And within the subsequent yr, we’re offering happiness to humanity from the US of America.”
As soon as the session disbanded, Infantino was distracted. He acquired phrase that Inter Milan was making a comeback on the UEFA Champions League semifinals towards Barcelona. Infantino pulled out his telephone, and watched the final quarter-hour on his telephone from the Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk, outdoors the White Home.