Gianni Infantino is not eligible to stand for a fourth term as FIFA president in 2027, according to Miguel Maduro, the former head of the world football body’s governance committee. Infantino is currently seeking re-election to the post.
Maduro made the remarks to reporters on Tuesday, two weeks before FIFA’s deadline for submitting candidacies for the presidential election in March 2027. With that cutoff approaching, the human rights organisation FairSquare has written to member associations asking them to declare Infantino ineligible.
Maduro cites the three-term cap in FIFA statutes
Maduro pointed to Article 33, paragraph two of the statutes, which he said is unambiguous: “no person may serve as president for more than three terms.” In his view, Infantino has already been elected three times and has served three terms, so another presidency cannot be squared with the rules.
He also argued that the wording leaves no room for shortened terms. Maduro said the provision does not distinguish between complete and incomplete terms, or between four-year terms and shorter ones.
Infantino’s first spell and the disputed 2016 to 2019 period
Infantino was first elected at an Extraordinary Congress in 2016, after Sepp Blatter resigned. He has argued that this initial spell should not count towards the limit, because it completed an interrupted mandate.
In December 2022, the FIFA Council said it had “unanimously confirmed” that the period from 2016 to 2019 does not count as a term of office for Infantino. FairSquare has said the reasoning behind that decision was never made public.
Infantino’s prospects were strengthened significantly last month, when the head of Asian football endorsed his bid. Support across the confederations gives him a commanding position among FIFA’s 211 voting members.
Maduro, a Portuguese lawyer, was removed from his FIFA post in 2017 after he blocked Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko from being re-elected to the organisation’s top committee. He has since argued that FIFA’s governance framework cannot hold its president to account, particularly when the president benefits from how rules are interpreted.
FairSquare presses member associations to act before the deadline
Maduro said the existing checks on presidential power have failed, pointing to the weakening of the independent bodies meant to oversee FIFA’s leadership. He said recent events showed not effective control but a president who seems free to decide as he wishes.
FairSquare said it has contacted 52 member associations. None has yet responded, but its director and cofounder, Nicholas McGeehan, told a news agency that the group will meet Norwegian football officials on Wednesday.
Norway’s football association has previously backed FairSquare’s official complaint against Infantino over a breach of political neutrality rules. McGeehan said he was hopeful the association would set an example in this case too, but argued that other associations must also act rather than leave the job to the Norwegians.
Maduro said member associations have been reluctant to act independently because of what he described as a “climate of fear”.
