Maduro says Infantino cannot run for a fourth term — Al Jazeera
Former FIFA Governance Committee chair Miguel Maduro said that the organization’s president, Gianni Infantino, cannot run for a fourth term in the 2027 election. In Maduro’s view, FIFA’s statutes allow one person to serve as president for no more than three terms, Al Jazeera reports.
Interpretation of FIFA statutes
Maduro referred to paragraph 2 of Article 33 of the FIFA statutes, which, he said, provides no exceptions for shortened terms. He stated that Infantino has already been elected FIFA president three times and has held the post for three terms.
At the time of Maduro’s statement, two weeks remained until the deadline for submitting candidacies for the FIFA presidential election in March 2027. Human rights organization FairSquare also appealed to FIFA member associations to recognize that Infantino is ineligible to take part in the election.
Previous FIFA Council decision
Infantino had previously secured recognition that the period of his leadership of FIFA from 2016 to 2019 should not be counted as a term in office. He was elected at the extraordinary congress in 2016 after Sepp Blatter’s resignation to complete the interrupted mandate.
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In December 2022, the FIFA Council unanimously confirmed that the 2016–2019 period would not be counted as a term in office for Infantino. FairSquare says that the reasoning behind this decision was not made public.
FairSquare director and co-founder Nicholas McGeehan said that the organization had contacted 52 associations but had not yet received responses. He also spoke of a planned meeting with representatives of the Norwegian Football Association, which had previously supported FairSquare’s complaint over Infantino’s possible violation of political neutrality rules.
Maduro also believes that national associations are reluctant to act independently because of an “atmosphere of fear,” and that FIFA’s existing oversight mechanisms are unable to adequately limit the powers of the organization’s president.
