October 8 – Former Swiss national team and Tottenham Hotspur player Ramon Vega has said that he wants to have another run at winning the FIFA presidency.
Vega began a challenge to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, a fellow Swiss citizen, in 2019 but failed to achieve the five nominations required to get him on the ballot sheet.
While he had more than five national federations who were sympathetic to his candidacy, he was short of FIFA members prepared to stick their necks out and nominate him for fear of reprisals from Infantino and FIFA’s executive.
A relative unknown outside of Europe, Vega would have struggled to convince more than 50% of FIFA’s membership to vote for him against Infantino.
“The current leadership has demoralised the game. Weak governance has damaged Fifa’s credibility and eroded trust across the global football family. We must stop this conflict from escalating,” said Vega in a statement.
“Ego-driven battles within football administration must never be allowed to damage those who matter most: the players, coaches, referees and supporters around the world. They are not responsible for these conflicts. They deserve better.”
Some of the big issues surrounding Infantino in 2019 that were concerning Vega are very much at the centre of the current crisis in FIFA.
On January 31, 2019, speaking to Insideworldfootball, Vega referred to the issues surrounding the $25 billion proposed sell-off of FIFA’s international competition calendar to a Softbank backed consortium.
“One of the biggest issues we have to face as a football family is the issue of financial transparency. We have a proposal before the FIFA Council for what increasingly looks like the sell-off of the international to a third-party rights holder, the identity of whom we do not know,” said Vega in 2019.
“When the FIFA president was challenged about the identity of the investor – potentially the future owner of the bulk of the income of international football in the way that deal was presented – he refused to say who it was. He said he signed confidentiality agreements. Then he said there was a time limit on the deal and they had to sign off,” he continued.
Having set a time limit, the idea didn’t die but came back with a task Force that FIFA president Gianni Infantino chaired. “This is a very clear and dangerous conflict of interest. We then hear that he had been advised by his top lawyers that this deal could not be done. Now his head of legal has been fired. What is going on here?” said Vega in 2019.
There is a concerning and recurring pattern of behaviour with Infantino’s attempts to sell off FIFA’s commercial rights in 2026, this time to an entity funded by Thrive Capital which has links to US president Donald Trump. Thrive is led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
In 2026 Vega is saying: “Football is in the emergency room, on life support. We cannot wait any longer. Fifa needs a new direction and fundamental reform.
“We must reunite the football family, restore trust, bring stability and modernise Fifa’s governance. This requires decisive change – not cosmetic adjustments.”
His sentiments are widely shared throughout FIFA members, but whether he can mount a serious challenge for the FIFA presidency, remains to be seen.
The deadlines to announce candidacy to stand in the election is November 19 and must be supported by five letters of proposal from FIFA’s membership.
See: Ramon Vega closes in for assault on FIFA’s presidential palace
Vega says no boardroom in the world would accept FIFA’s lack of transparency.
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