Friends with tyrants, wants royal treatment & World Cup sale bid failed… so is Infantino now too toxic to run football?

WELCOMING Fifa boss Gianni Infantino to the splendour of the Oval Office, Donald Trump anointed him the “king of soccer”. Once the target for childhood bullies, the football bureaucrat from humble beginnings was now being feted by the world’s most powerful man. Gianni Infantino was bullied as a child but now rubs shoulders with dictators Credit: Getty Infantino presents Trump with the Fifa Peace Prize last year Credit: AP It was likely a giant ego boost for someone not already lacking in that department — a TV contract at the 2022 World Cup stipulated that Infantino must be pictured onscreen at every game he attended. Yet, has the floundering Fifa chief’s puffed-up self-importance now chronically clouded his judgement? Sign up for the Football newsletter Thank you! Believing he had the backing of enough of football’s power brokers across the globe, he attempted to sell off stakes in the World Cup for £15billion last month. But he had drastically overplayed his hand. Europe’s governing body Uefa threatened a boycott of the 2030 World Cup. And despite Infantino’s plans being hastily dropped, the Europeans remain hell-bent on forcing a vote of no confidence in the Fifa president. Trump’s cringeworthy flattery of Infantino as footballing royalty at the White House in March 2025 was ­perhaps not so ludicrous. For the most powerful man in the world’s most popular sport enjoys all the gilded trappings of a head of state. Dripping in wealth — he earns around £4.5million a year in salary and bonuses — Infantino, 56, likes to travel the globe by private jet, glad-handing presidents and princes. Most read in Sport Before he arrived in Vancouver for a Fifa conference in April, the organisation had demanded a ­presidential-style full motorcade for the football administrator. The level four escort — which can ignore red lights and block other vehicles — is used for visiting US presidents and surpasses security measures laid on for Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney. Vancouver’s police denied the request. So how did Infantino become football’s arch power broker? And is he now too toxic to run the ­beautiful game? He was born to Italian immigrant parents in the pretty Swiss Alpine village of Brig in March 1970. A base for nearby ski slopes and summer hiking trails not far from the Italian border, it is a world away from the cauldrons of international football. As the youngest of three and known as Piccolo — meaning little one — Infantino suffered health ­complications as an infant and required a blood transfusion. He would later tell reporters that he received blood from donors in Bristol and Serbia, adding: “I would love to meet them. Infantino with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s Vladimir Putin at the 2018 World Cup Credit: AFP Infantino taking selfie by Pele’s coffin Credit: AP “I survived with English blood and 46 years later I am the Fifa president. It’s a personal story, but I am happy to share it.” His father Vincenzo was from Calabria — the “toe” of Italy — while his mother Maria was originally from Lombardy in its north. They moved to Switzerland in search of a better life. Vincenzo worked night shifts on trains while Maria was employed at a newspaper kiosk at the station. Infantino’s cousin Daniel Nellen, who owns a hair salon in Brig, described Vincenzo’s drive to provide for his family: “Work three days, go, stay one night and come back. When he had days off, he worked in the kiosk at the station with Gianni’s mother. Then he would go again with the train to Rome, Paris, Brussels.” Yet, despite being grafters, Daniel says the family faced discrimination because of their Italian background. The salon boss told The Athletic last year: “From the Swiss, we felt this racism. Gianni had red hair and his skin had freckles. This was not too much of a big problem. The problem more was being Italian.” Infantino touched on the bullying when he made his infamous speech on the eve of the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Reacting to the criticism of the Gulf state’s human rights record, he said: “Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker. “I feel like them because I know what it feels like to be discriminated, to be bullied as a foreigner in a country. At school I was bullied because I had red hair and freckles. I was bullied. I didn’t speak good German. What do you do then? You lock yourself in your room, you cry and then you try to make some friends.” The comments were described as “crass” and “clumsy” by one human rights group. His cousin Daniel said that growing up, Infantino’s intelligence was “crazy,” adding: “Learning was so easy for Gianni. US striker Balogun is sent off at 2026 World Cup, leading Trump to ask Infantino to review the automatic one-match ban Credit: Getty Shortly before this summer’s World Cup final, Infantino told Trump: ‘The American dream, Mr. President, came to reality. We united the world’ Credit: Shutterstock Editorial “He came home from school and the first thing he would do was open up Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian sports newspaper — the results of the games, the matches, sport, sport, sport, football, football, football.” Inter Milan fan Infantino was not much of a player, his career reached only as far as the third team for local amateur club FC Brig-Glis. Another cousin, Renato Vitetta, revealed: “Let’s just say he wasn’t the best player.” Any hopes that Infantino had of a career on the pitch were over when he was still a primary school pupil. In a school assignment he wrote that he had set his heart instead on becoming a football lawyer. Cousin Daniel added: “I don’t think that when you are 20 years old, you think about becoming Fifa president. “But he said, ‘If I’m not good enough [to be a footballer], I want to be the lawyer of the footballer’. Always, his idea was to make ­something with football.” Aged 18, Infantino stood in FC Brig-Glis’s election for a new ­president. He promised new sponsors and revenue streams and that his mum Maria would wash the ­players’ kit for as long as he remained president. Shocking club veterans, he won the vote. It showed an astute grasp of electioneering that Infantino would use in the future. Studying law at the University of Fribourg, he then won a job as legal counsel and general secretary of the International Centre for Sports Studies in the Swiss city of Neuchatel. Then, aged 30, he landed a ­position in Uefa’s legal department. Dan O’Toole, Uefa’s former brand manager, remembers him as an “amiable” colleague. He said last year: “In the early years, we used to go out socially and go around to his house. He was quiet, if anything. Not shy, just sort of quiet.” Strait-laced Infantino, who speaks seven languages, became best known to football fans as the suit who drily oversaw the Champions League draw. At this summer’s World Cup it was reported Infantino flew at least 31,144 miles by Qatari private jet, watching the likes of Lionel Messi Credit: Getty The Fifa boss also watched England’s Jude ­Bellingham work his magic Credit: Getty Rising quickly through the ranks, he became Secretary General in 2009, overseeing the expansion of the Uefa Euro 2016 tournament to 24 teams. In 2001 he married Leena Al ­Ashqar, who once worked for the Lebanese FA. They have four daughters. In 2016 he defied expectations and won the Fifa presidential ­election to replace disgraced Sepp Blatter. With a typically sharp- elbowed campaign, he promised to expand the World Cup to 40 teams. A workaholic, he began his tenure by flying from Geneva to Bristol on a no-frills easyJet flight to attend a meeting in Cardiff. He told reporters: “It was the ­easiest and best option for me. We are normal people and we have to behave like normal people.” Today his travel tastes are a little different. At this summer’s World Cup it was reported he flew at least 31,144 miles by Qatari private jet, watching the likes of Lionel Messi and Jude ­Bellingham work their magic. Reportedly somewhat aloof while at Fifa’s offices in Zurich, he was said to come alive when mixing with the rich and powerful. An anonymous source told news site Politico: “He loves dictators and billionaires. When he sees people with money, he melts.”Nick McGeehan, from the human rights group FairSquare, said last year: “He clearly thinks of himself as a statesperson. If you don’t think that power can be challenged, you start to behave like an authoritarian and feel at home with others with the same power.” In 2019 Infantino accepted an Order of Friendship medal from Vladimir Putin and moved his family to Qatar before the 2022 World Cup there. He faced widespread criticism after he took a selfie close to Pele’s open coffin at the Brazil legend’s 2023 wake. He claimed Pele’s teammates and family members had asked him to take the photo. In December 2025 he personally presented Donald Trump with the much-mocked inaugural Fifa Peace Prize. By February, the US was at war with Iran. Shortly before this summer’s World Cup final, Infantino told Trump: “The American dream, Mr. President, came to reality. We united the world.” In the tournament, when the US’s star striker Folarin Balogun was red-carded in the Round of 32, it should have triggered an automatic one-match ban, but Trump personally called up his buddy Infantino and lobbied for a review. In a move that caused widespread anger, Fifa suspended the ban and Balogun played in the next knockout match against Belgium. Uefa said the decision “crossed a red line” and had undermined “the integrity of the game”. Many felt ­justice was done on the pitch when the US were thrashed 4-1. The tournament delivered record attendances and $15billion in ­revenue, with 1.5billion fans around the world watching the final itself. Infantino, desperate for re-election next March, made his move when he considered himself at his most powerful. Yet, his plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup was a ­cataclysmic blunder. Now, the pompous king of soccer may soon be booted off his Fifa throne. Comment now