Corruption has engulfed and plagued FIFA, or Fédération Internationale de Football Association, since the summer of 2015. Joseph Blatter, previous president of FIFA since 1998, has received a six year ban from all football related activities, as made by the FIFA ethics committee. Several other officials and associates of FIFA have also been indicted, and are facing criminal charges relating to corruption accusations.

It is because of these events that on February 26th, the FIFA elections occurred, and a new president was assigned. Five men: Prince Ali Al Hussein, Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, Jérôme Champagne, Gianni Infantino, and Tokyo Sexwale were admitted as candidates, and they all have the same general plan of restoring the FIFA name. In the end, after two rounds of voting, Gianni Infantino was elected as the new president of FIFA, beating out his closest competitor Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa by 27 out of 207 total votes.

According to CNN, he wants to “build a new era where we can put football at the center of the stage.” He also claimed that he could “win back the respect, and focus on this wonderful game that is football.” Although he received criticism from Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa earlier in the election after claiming to give five million dollars to each of the 209 FIFA associated nations, Sheikh Salman Al Khalifa has pledged to support Infantino in bringing unity to FIFA.

According to the BBC, Infantino says that the FIFA name will be restored, and that he wants to work with every single nation to improve the organization. He will need to do a lot of things to make this happen, and he’ll need to focus on some major issues which have been plaguing FIFA, such as the bidding of countries for hosting the World Cup. There was controversy after the decision to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was made, and the accusations of corruption mostly erupted after that point. Since the World Cup can make several billions in profit and is more watched than the Olympics, accusations were made and an investigation was launched against FIFA officials. Both Swiss and US authorities have made accusations, and the US has charged 47 people on charges of bribery, racketeering, and money laundering.

So what should Infantino do? Betsy Cepparulo, upper school Global Peace and Justice teacher, says, “All decisions need to made anonymously. If you’re trying to decide what country the World Cup should be in, it should be made anonymous, so that there is no bias and so bid decisions can be made anonymously. Bias is in human nature, and protections should be put in place for bids.” By establishing a better, more anonymous system for bidding, hopefully Infantino can stop corruption in FIFA.

Carlin Beskrone ’19 says “[Infantino] could have the World Cup hosted in a European country, and the other countries associated with FIFA.” The problem is, any country could earn a massive amount of money by hosting the World Cup. So, Beskrone responds by saying, “If the country hosts the world cup, then they should give some percentage of total profits to FIFA, since it is a nonprofit, and that money could be given to other countries.” This could help with equality for the countries that are less influential, and this could help with preventing the potential overspending that some claimed Infantino will do.

Chamby Zepeda, upper school Spanish teacher and boys soccer coach, commented on the state of the FIFA organization saying, “For one thing, I think they’re going to be screwed up now for a long time. I think that this won’t be fixed overnight. I think that any scandal or corruption charges will take a while to fix,” and, “I think it will take about 5 or 10 years for [FIFA] to get it’s name back.” However, he is still optimistic about the situation, saying, “I’m sure that they’re are giving him [Infantino] background checks and checking sources. Even though he doesn’t have a plan, I have faith in someone who is elected especially after corruption charges. I think that he’s also probably working with administrators and head CEOs on how to sort of conduct himself, and they’re probably working together, as after the corruption case, no one can really work by themselves.”

Assuming that FIFA is doing better on their part to fix itself. Patrick Haubert ‘16 also has high hopes for the new leader, “I’m optimistic, I’d love to see [FIFA] change substantially, but it’s gonna take a ton of effort before it could potentially be done.”

The World Cup and the FIFA organization have been the subjects of controversy, and a new president in office is what both soccer fans and countries associated with FIFA around the world need in order to create a better FIFA. He will, however, need to make some serious changes to prevent the massive corruption and bribery charges that plagued FIFA members and officials.