Europe 1 with AFP 20:38 p.m., March 16, 2023

FIFA President Gianni Infantino was re-elected as Fifa leader at the body's 73rd Congress. The only candidate in the running, the Italian-Swiss was a candidate for his own succession. He is guaranteed to be at the head of the body at least until 2027.

A football World Cup with 104 matches from 2026, a global tournament of 32 clubs: re-elected Thursday for four years at the head of Fifa, the Italian-Swiss Gianni Infantino, in office since 2016, intends to inaugurate an era of all superlatives, inflating competitions and revenues. "We need more, not less global competitions to develop football," summed up the 52-year-old leader at the 73rd Congress of the body in Kigali, before being renewed by acclamation by the delegates of the 211 member federations, alone in the running as in his previous election in 2019.

If this system does not allow to count the dissonant votes, the Norwegian, German and Swedish federations have each indicated that they had not supported it, Norway also demanding a balance sheet of deaths on the construction sites of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and their compensation, accepted by the body. But the handful of rebellious states could not agree on a competing candidacy. And Michel Platini's former confidant at UEFA (2009-2016), unexpectedly elected head of FIFA in February 2016 after a cascade of scandals, is guaranteed to remain at the top of world football at least until 2027.

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Redistributive power

While the statutes of the Zurich organization now provide for three terms of up to four years, Infantino has already prepared the ground to stay until 2031, declaring in mid-December that he was "still in his first term", since his 2016-2019 lease was incomplete. The horizon seems clear for the smooth-headed lawyer, who again claimed Thursday to want to "make football truly global", and stands as a bulwark against the sporting and economic hegemony of European football thanks to Fifa's development programs, boosted by its growing revenues.

As four years ago, it can post a solid financial balance sheet, with an 18% increase in revenues and 45% in reserves over the 2019-22 cycle compared to the previous one, which allows FIFA to further increase its subsidies to confederations and federations, the key to its redistributive system as well as its electoral system. The organization grants the same amounts to Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts and Nevis, Bermuda and Papua New Guinea as it does to Brazil or Germany, each of these federations also having one vote in Congress.

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Football fractures

As long as the president pleases the 35 associations of Central America or the 54 African federations, he can thus afford to offend the powerful European nations: by considering a biennial World Cup before giving it up, last year, or by prohibiting a handful of selections to wear an inclusive armband "One Love" during the Qatari World Cup, to proclaim their commitment to LGBT rights.

On the governance side, her last mandate was marked by a vast reform of transfers, the institution of maternity leave for professional players and more protective disciplinary procedure rules for victims of sexual violence. Already, the main projects of the coming years have been approved: starting with the passage of the Women's World Cup from 24 to 32 teams this year, with an endowment increased by 300% to 150 million dollars, and the Men's World Cup from 32 to 48 teams from the 2026 edition, shared between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

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Expanded Club World Cup

In addition, FIFA decided on 16 December to expand its Club World Cup from an annual seven-team format to a four-team competition with 32 teams from the summer of 2025. A project that his boss has been trying to achieve for years to compete with the lucrative UEFA Champions League.

But this race to expand could well awaken the fractures of football: Wednesday evening the World League Forum (WLF), bringing together forty championships, denounced decisions "without consultation", which further burden "an already overloaded calendar, and take no account of the impact on the competitiveness of domestic leagues and the health of players". The WLF, like its European League counterpart grouping the European championships, will "decide" the "most appropriate" responses, leaving the threat of a judicial response.