Gianni Infantino

Infantino was born on 23 March 1970 in Brig, Switzerland, the son of immigrant parents from the Italian regions of Calabria and Lombardy. As a result, he holds both Swiss and Italian citizenship. His parents had lived in Domodossola, Piedmont, before moving to Switzerland for work. His father, Vincenzo, was from Reggio Calabria, while his mother, Maria Minolfi, was from Piamborno in Piancogno, Val Camonica, in the province of Brescia. His father worked for the railway, including on sleeping cars, while his mother ran a newsstand in Brig; Infantino later recalled growing up around the railway station and helping his mother at the kiosk. The family had spent part of the post-war period in Val d'Ossola before moving to Switzerland, where Infantino grew up in Brig.

Owing to his father, an Inter Milan supporter who attended the club's European Cup finals in the 1960s, Infantino was introduced to this football club during his childhood; the very first football match his father took him to see as a child was an Inter match at San Siro. His footballing heroes became Alessandro Altobelli and Evaristo Beccalossi. At the age of 11, he and two friends took over and reorganised FC Folgore, a team formed by Italian immigrants in Upper Valais, and entered it in the Swiss league in the fifth tier. At the age of 14, he attended his first Switzerland–Italy match, a 1–1 friendly in Lausanne in November 1984, with Rossi and Altobelli among the starters. As an amateur footballer, Infantino played as high as the Fourth League, the eighth tier of the Swiss football league system.

Infantino studied law at the University of Fribourg. To help pay for his studies, he worked on sleeping cars and cleaning railway vehicles, as well as helping his mother at the family newsstand. After qualifying as a lawyer and specialising in sports law, he pursued his professional career in the field and worked as an adviser to a variety of football bodies, such as the Italian, Spanish, and Swiss football leagues, before becoming Secretary General of the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) at the University of Neuchâtel in the late 1990s. He was also a lecturer in law at the same university. He joined the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) in August 2000, when he began working on a range of legal, commercial, and professional football matters.

Infantino started working at UEFA in August 2000 as a member of its professional football and marketing division, where he subsequently took charge of relations with football leagues, and was appointed as the Director of UEFA's Legal Affairs and Club Licensing Division in January 2004. The Panama Papers indicated that while he was a senior legal official at UEFA, Infantino had co-signed a television-rights contract with a company subsequently linked to defendants in the United States investigation into FIFA corruption, a relationship UEFA had previously denied. Infantino said that he was "dismayed" by the reports and stated that he had never personally dealt with the indicted parties. Following the departure of Lars-Christer Olsson, Infantino became UEFA's Chief Executive ad interim, and was appointed Deputy General Secretary in October 2007 and Secretary General of UEFA in October 2009.

During his time there, UEFA introduced Financial Fair Play and improved commercial support to smaller national associations, while Infantino also played an active role in protecting the integrity of football. In response to the 2015 Greek football scandal and acts of violence and corruption, mainly in Greek football, the Greek government decided to introduce a new sports law. As UEFA's general secretary, Infantino led the negotiations with the Greek government and supported the Hellenic Football Federation's warning to Greece that it faced suspension from international football for interference. Infantino oversaw the expansion of UEFA Euro 2016 to 24 teams, and played a role in the conception of the UEFA Nations League and the UEFA Euro 2020, which was intended to take place in 13 European nations before the number was reduced to 11.

On behalf of UEFA, Infantino handled relations with political institutions, including the European Commission and the European Council. He was regarded as particularly close to Michel Platini, serving as his right-hand man during Platini's presidency of UEFA. He was also known for presiding over the draws for major UEFA competitions, including the Champions League, Europa League, and European Championship, a role in which he was described as a sort of alter ego of the then FIFA president Sepp Blatter; he no longer performed it after becoming FIFA president, when he was succeeded by Giorgio Marchetti.

Alongside his career at UEFA, Infantino was a member of FIFA's Reform Committee. In 2015, he received the backing of the UEFA Executive Committee to stand for the position of president in the 2016 FIFA Extraordinary Congress. He was the official UEFA candidate to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president, following Blatter's resignation from the position shortly after his re-election. On 26 October 2015, he confirmed his candidacy and submitted the required declarations of support. He promised to expand the FIFA World Cup to forty teams.

On 26 February 2016, Infantino was elected FIFA President, receiving on the second ballot 115 votes out of 207. He was elected to serve until 2019, completing the remainder of Blatter's term. Infantino, a dual Swiss-Italian citizen at the time, became the first Italian to hold the presidency of FIFA. Following his election, Infantino stepped down as UEFA general secretary, and Theodore Theodoridis was appointed general secretary ad interim on 4 March 2016. In June 2026, ten years after the election, the former UEFA president Michel Platini filed a criminal complaint in France against FIFA and Infantino, alleging influence-peddling to prevent Platini from succeeding Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.

Infantino's first presidency focused on repositioning FIFA as an organisation committed to significantly increase its investment in the development of football worldwide. Since his first election, Infantino has introduced wide-ranging reforms at FIFA, expanding the FIFA World Cup to 48 teams from the 2026 edition onwards, and introducing the use of VAR at the 2018 edition. He also promoted the expansion of the FIFA Club World Cup to 32 teams from the 2025 edition onwards.

The Forward Programme broadened FIFA's role as a socially responsible member of the global community through initiatives such as FIFA Football for Schools, which promotes education and life skills through football, and the FIFA Guardians programme, which seeks to strengthen child safeguarding and protect vulnerable people within football. …

According to The New Yorker, former colleagues have described Infantino as maintaining tight personal control over FIFA; one former council member said "he decides everything by himself". Infantino's Instagram account, with 4.2 million followers and a restricted comments section, functions as FIFA's principal public-messaging channel. He has described FIFA as "the official happiness provider to humanity". In a 887-word statement in 2026, Infantino criticised sports journalism in world football calling critics of his FIFA tenure "hypocritical" and counter-productive.

As a lifelong supporter of Inter, Infantino is often seen celebrating the club's milestones, such as the 2026 scudetto. His public alignment with Inter and subsequent comments have drawn criticism regarding his neutrality as the FIFA president. In a controversial March 2018 interview prior to the Derby della Madonnina with AC Milan, he stated that Inter's history is "a beautiful one that has moved millions of people" and that it is "a slightly crazy team that makes us suffer", and added that it is "perhaps also thanks to being an Inter fan that I went on to become the FIFA president". In April 2022, Infantino sparked controversy and faced backlash from Juventus supporters after jokingly celebrating a Juventus defeat and an Inter victory, stating it was the "ideal day" because "Fiorentina won and Juventus lost", before adding that "Inter also won, so I am happy too".

Infantino's management style has been characterised by an increasingly centralised approach to FIFA's governance and by an emphasis on expanding the organisation's competitions, revenues, and political influence. Infantino was initially elected as a reformist figure and introduced a number of measures that appeared to make FIFA more transparent and democratic; however, these reforms were subsequently accompanied by the re-emergence of patronage networks and a growing concentration of power in the presidency. …

Infantino is married to Leena Al Ashqar from Lebanon through whom he holds Lebanese citizenship. On 25 November 2025, as the non-Lebanese husband cannot acquire Lebanese citizenship by marriage to a Lebanese woman, Infantino was symbolically granted citizenship for "his role in developing the game and his continued support for Lebanese football", officially becoming a citizen of Lebanon on 16 February 2026. Infantino and his Lebanese-born wife have four daughters: Shania Serena, Alessia, Dhalia Nora, and Sabrina. He speaks French, German, and Italian as mother tongues, and also speaks Arabic, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Since October 2021, he has spent time in Doha, Qatar, where he rents a house and where two of his children attend school. He moved his official residency to Zug, Switzerland, in June 2022.