“I will run for re-election” next year, announced Thursday, March 31, the president of the International Football Federation (FIFA), Gianni Infantino before the body’s Congress meeting in Doha, on the eve of the draw for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. .
Without a major opponent declared for the time being, Mr. Infantino will thus apply for a third and final four-year term during the elective Congress scheduled for early 2023.
The Italian-Swiss (52), a lawyer by training, took the reins of the governing body of world football in 2016 when the latter was in the midst of a global corruption scandal.
In June 208, shortly before the start of the World Cup in Russia, he assured in an interview with “Le Monde” that “The facts clearly show that FIFA today is a totally different organization compared to the past”.
Subject to criminal proceedings since 2020
Re-elected as the only candidate in 2019, Mr. Infantino has been subject to criminal proceedings in Switzerland since July 2020. He is being prosecuted for “incitement to abuse of authority”, “incitement to breach of official secrecy” and “incitement to obstruct criminal proceedings”.
In question: meetings kept secret (without minutes), in March and April 2016 then in June 2017, with the former Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber, who, at the time, was in charge of investigations into FIFA , including criminal proceedings opened against X, in 2015, for “suspicion of unfair management and money laundering” in connection with the controversial awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.