European soccer's leading figures are gathering in Berlin with a clock ticking: they need to settle on a candidate and a strategy if they want any real shot at unseating Gianni Infantino as FIFA president.
UEFA called its 55 member federations to a previously scheduled summit on Thursday, October 8, 2026, in the German capital. The timing is no accident. It lands right in the middle of European efforts to find a new leader for soccer's global governing body, with the FIFA presidential election set for March 18, 2026, in Rabat, Morocco.
The push against Infantino gathered pace after his divisive plan for private investment in the World Cup collapsed within days of being revealed in July. That episode exposed long-standing mistrust within UEFA toward its former employee and what the organisation views as an increasingly executive presidency.
Legal Pressure Building
UEFA's response goes beyond politics. The organisation is preparing a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland over alleged financial mismanagement tied to the World Cup sell-off deal, and has asked courts in the United States to authorise discovery of evidence.
"Somewhere along the way things went too far with FIFA, and we're looking to put things back where they belong," UEFA general secretary Theodore Theodoridis said last month.
Europe's 55 federations make up more than a quarter of FIFA's 211 voting members. But Associated Press research suggests Infantino already has roughly 90 votes pledged, albeit before any challenger has emerged. UEFA itself isn't fully unified behind the opposition either, with Infantino drawing promised support from Azerbaijan, home country of a close aide, and from Latvia. He met soccer and government officials in Prague on Wednesday.
Before anything else, UEFA and its allies worldwide need to agree on at least one candidate willing to challenge Infantino, with a November 18 deadline to officially enter the race.
Who Might Actually Run?
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin was joined in August by his fellow FIFA vice presidents from Asia and North America in publicly accusing Infantino of deception and breach of trust over the World Cup sell-off plan. Yet none of them currently looks set to appear on the FIFA ballot.
Ceferin has long dismissed suggestions he might run himself, though he said last month at UEFA meetings in Greece there were "many, many" potential candidates. Victor Montagliani of CONCACAF is expected to focus instead on his own reelection bid at that confederation in February. Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of the AFC, who was the favourite in the five-man race Infantino won in February 2016, has faced him before but has not been confirmed as a candidate this time.
Speculation had also circled Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaïfi, a close Ceferin ally and Qatari member of UEFA's executive committee. He ruled himself out last week at a meeting of the European Football Clubs group he leads.
More Than Just the Infantino Question
The Berlin gathering is UEFA's biennial business meeting, bringing together top executives from its member federations to debate policy, strategy and international competitions. The Infantino issue is only part of that agenda, but it's likely to dominate discussion as European soccer tries to shape what a reformed, more transparent FIFA might look like, and decide who might actually be willing to run it.
