Aleksander Ceferin, president of European football's governing body UEFA, will not run for the presidency of FIFA at the next election in March 2027. He announced the decision in an interview with the British podcast The Rest Is Politics.
Ceferin, who has led UEFA since 2016, is one of the leading opponents of current FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who has been mired in crisis since abandoning his controversial plan to open world football's governing body to outside investors.
Keeping the pressure on Infantino
Ceferin said he was not interested in the FIFA presidency. He said he loved UEFA and the work he does there, adding that his credibility as an opponent of Infantino was far greater if he had no interest in the job himself. The 58-year-old Slovenian, whose term as UEFA president ends in 2027, said he wanted to enjoy life, having until now kept observers guessing over whether he would seek re-election at UEFA.
Under his leadership, UEFA has said it would boycott all competitions run by FIFA, including the World Cup, a threat it has repeated even after Infantino dropped his investment plan. European football's governing body wants Infantino to leave his post.
Ceferin said one possibility was that Infantino would realise he lacked the support needed for re-election. He said the other option was that Infantino would stand in the election, in which case he believed there would be a candidate against him, though he did not yet know who that would be. Ceferin said he had not spoken to Infantino, an Italian-Swiss national and former UEFA secretary general, since the crisis began.
Possible rival candidate
According to various media reports, Victor Montagliani, the Canadian president of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf), could emerge as a candidate to oppose Infantino. Along with UEFA, Concacaf has been among the most vocal opponents of the FIFA president, alongside the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The three confederations recently signed a joint statement calling for the footballing world to unite behind their cause.
Infantino the only declared candidate
In an interview published by FIFA on Sunday, Infantino said the organisation wanted to develop football in each of its 211 member federations worldwide. He said some federations, unfortunately, did not need that kind of development and did not want others to progress, but said the gap between the major footballing countries and the rest needed to be narrowed. Infantino met Montagliani over the weekend at a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) in the Dominican Republic.
The FIFA presidential election will take place in March 2027 in Rabat, decided by a majority vote of the organisation's 211 member federations. Infantino is currently the only declared candidate.
