Ceferin Won't Challenge Infantino for FIFA Presidency, Says He'll Face a Rival or Quit

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin ruled himself out of a run at the FIFA presidency Monday, telling the podcast "The Rest is Politics: Leading" he has zero interest in the job. Ceferin has nevertheless continued to pressure Gianni Infantino to leave.

"I'm not interested because of two reasons," Ceferin said. "One reason is that I love UEFA and I love working here, and I think that at a certain point... it's time to also enjoy life a bit. And the second point is, my credibility is much, much higher if I'm not interested in the position."

That second line matters. Ceferin has been the loudest voice against Infantino since the FIFA president floated a plan to sell a 21% stake in a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprise to private investors, an entity that would have managed commercial and ticketing rights for FIFA's tournaments, including the men's and women's World Cups, according to the BBC. Infantino scrapped the plan after UEFA members voted to boycott World Cups if it went through.

The damage didn't stop when the plan died. UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation accused Infantino of "deception" in a joint open letter, according to Al Jazeera. All the home nations' football associations in Britain have pulled their support. Infantino still has backing from South America's CONMEBOL and Africa's CAF, per the BBC, so this isn't a unanimous revolt. It's a split down continental lines.

Ceferin laid out two paths for Infantino, and repeated the same language across every outlet that carried the podcast excerpts, including the Telegraph and AP. Either Infantino reads the room and steps aside, or he runs anyway at the FIFA Congress in Morocco in March 2027 and gets a challenger. "I don't know yet who," Ceferin said, though he named no candidate himself.

Other reporting has floated names Ceferin didn't. Al Jazeera and the Malay Mail both point to CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani and Asian Football Confederation chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa as the most likely challengers. FIFA has set a Nov. 18 deadline for anyone who wants to formally nominate against Infantino, according to AP.

Infantino, for his part, hasn't shown any public sign he's stepping back. He spent the weekend working the room: meeting Caribbean Football Union members in the Dominican Republic on Saturday, then appearing at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Cristiano Ronaldo, according to the BBC and the Telegraph.

When Sky News' James Matthews asked Infantino in the Dominican Republic whether he'd betrayed FIFA's trust and intended to step down, Infantino responded, "See you at the hairdressers," a joke about both men being bald, the Telegraph reported. Matthews later said the exchange summed up the encounter: an opportunity for real answers that produced a one-liner instead.

Ceferin also revealed he hasn't spoken to Infantino since the controversy started. "Things are changing every day," he told the podcast. "Every day there are different discussions."

There's a case to be made for Infantino here: he did scrap the private-equity plan once opposition mounted, which is the outcome critics said they wanted. Whether that's contrition or damage control is a matter of interpretation, not fact, and Infantino hasn't offered a detailed public accounting of why he pursued the plan in the first place or why he abandoned it beyond the pressure campaign itself.

The coverage across outlets was strikingly uniform. The BBC, Al Jazeera, AP, the Telegraph and the Malay Mail all ran essentially the same podcast quotes with minor framing differences. None of them reported any on-record response from Infantino directly rebutting the "deception" accusation, and none confirmed whether a no-confidence vote is actually scheduled for the March Congress rather than just being discussed. The Telegraph noted UEFA, CONCACAF and the AFC are "reported to be mulling" such a vote, language that signals this is still speculative, not locked in.

What happens next runs on a real clock. FIFA's Nov. 18 nomination deadline will show whether Montagliani, Sheikh Salman, or anyone else actually puts their name forward. Until then, Infantino keeps traveling, keeps meeting football federations one by one, and keeps saying nothing that resembles a resignation.