Gianni Infantino

Introduction

Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA since 2016, is facing the sharpest scrutiny of his decade running world soccer. A New York Times investigation, published November 2, 2026, reported that FIFA has been quietly paying his personal United States tax bill — a benefit expected to total about $4 million that was never disclosed in FIFA’s filings . The New York Post carried the report the same day, days before the one-year mark of a separate World Cup sell-off scandal that FIFA’s own membership forced him to abandon . On November 3, the Post reported a second investigation: that Infantino’s inner circle allegedly enlisted a Trump-appointed adviser to obtain a fresh work permit for the family’s housekeeper after her legal status was revoked, while FIFA kept her on its own payroll for months after she was no longer authorized to work in the United States . Both stories landed months before he stands for re-election in March 2027 . On November 5, the Post reported a third front: official Miami airport records show FIFA booked VIP protocol escorts for Infantino’s wife and daughters — frequently on trips he was not on — prompting two of Europe’s top sports governance experts to accuse him of “abuse of power” .

Background Information

Infantino, a Swiss-Italian lawyer, took charge of FIFA in 2016 in the aftermath of the corruption scandal in which the US Justice Department charged more than 40 soccer officials, and he rose on a platform of the transparency reforms FIFA adopted in response — including a bylaw requiring that the compensation of top leadership be made public . He recently marked ten years as president and earns about $6 million per year according to FIFA’s annual report . He relocated from Switzerland to Miami in 2023 ahead of the 2026 World Cup — the move that set up the tax arrangement now under scrutiny . His benefits package also includes housing in any location where FIFA maintains an office and the use of a private jet provided by sponsor Qatar Airways .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section come from a New York Times investigation based on documents and interviews, from two follow-up New York Post reports built on leaked documents, audio recordings, named sources and an internal FIFA letter, and from a November 5 Post examination of Miami airport protocol logs and internal airport correspondence. They were never admitted by Infantino, never criminally charged, and never adjudicated in court. Infantino has not personally responded to any of the reports; FIFA says all of its internal regulations and processes, and all applicable laws, were followed, it did not respond to the Post’s questions about the housekeeper arrangement, and the airport records were also put to the State Department, US Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security.

At a winding-down meeting of the three-person committee that sets FIFA’s most senior salaries, held in Bangkok in May 2024, committee chair Bruno Chiomento — FIFA’s chief of governance, compliance and audit, and a Swiss accountant who has known Infantino for roughly 20 years — raised the fact that Infantino’s move from Switzerland to Miami exposed him to higher US income taxes. Chiomento argued FIFA should offset that extra burden through 2026, noting it was already covering additional taxes for about a dozen staff members relocating for the World Cup. The other two members agreed without much discussion, according to documents reviewed by the Times, and FIFA ultimately paid 100 percent of Infantino’s US tax bill — a sum expected to reach about $4 million by the end of his three-year American assignment . The New York Post noted the funds were paid without public disclosure despite FIFA’s promises of transparency .

The decision’s provenance drew the conflict-of-interest questions. Chiomento sought advice from outside experts including David Zollinger, Infantino’s personal lawyer, and FIFA’s own administrative staff raised concerns about hiring a lawyer whose client was the president, according to the Times reporting . UEFA itself has formally questioned Chiomento’s independence: in a letter to FIFA’s general secretary, the European body noted his roughly 20-year relationship with Infantino, that he attended the entire 2026 World Cup at FIFA’s expense, and it asked FIFA to consider his recusal and replacement as chair of the electoral committee for the duration of the presidential election .

The tax benefit sits inside what the reporting describes as a broader pattern of personal benefit on FIFA’s account. FIFA pays roughly $600,000 a year to rent Infantino’s Miami home on top of an apartment in Switzerland and a rental in Paris; after moving to Miami he lived for more than two years in a $27 million waterfront mansion owned by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt — a spokesperson confirmed he paid market rates — and has since moved into an apartment that an ownership-opaque Delaware company bought from singer Marc Anthony for $8.6 million . Before the World Cup, Infantino unilaterally replaced FIFA-assigned drivers with GRIZ Global Solutions, a security firm billing itself as providing “tier one” service, and had the same level of service extended to his wife for June and July at a rate of $1,300 per agent per day; Chiomento approved the additional agreement within hours, and FIFA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with the firm . Chiomento’s own committee salary was changed from $250,000 to 250,000 Swiss francs, worth about $50,000 more at exchange rates, while every other committee head’s salary stayed in dollars .

The institutional rules themselves moved in Infantino’s favor during his tenure. Statute revisions drafted in 2024 with help from Zollinger and Gianni Rizzello — a lawyer not on FIFA’s staff who studied law alongside Infantino — formally increased the president’s powers, reversing curtailments put in place under the reforms Infantino had once championed. A compensation and benefits policy approved just before the World Cup eased restrictions on gifts, loosened VIP-invitation rules, expanded discretion over private-jet use, and for the first time arranged fixed FIFA payments to the leaders of advisory committees whose members can vote in the presidential election — a change some administrative staff worried created the appearance of currying favor with electors .

The tax report also lands on an existing record. In July 2026, news emerged that Infantino had secretly held talks to sell a share of World Cup rights to a company owned by the brother of Jared Kushner; the earlier sell-off plan, valued by the Post at $4.2 billion, was scrapped after a global outcry from soccer officials, with Infantino promising an independent audit of how FIFA functions . He had previously come under fire for undoing a World Cup red card against US star Folarin Balogun following a phone call with President Trump, according to the Post . The Times reporting also cites his courtship of President Trump and efforts to steer the World Cup toward Saudi Arabia as part of the same pattern of controversy .

A second Post investigation, published November 3, 2026, added the household employment allegations. It reported that Infantino’s family employed a 33-year-old Nicaraguan housekeeper, identified in the report as Yajarlin del Socorro Fernandez, whose work authorization was revoked in June 2025 after the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to terminate the humanitarian parole program she had entered under — and that FIFA (Americas), Inc. kept employing her through October 2025, more than four months past that revocation, according to an internal FIFA letter obtained by the Post and two government sources familiar with her immigration file. The letter, signed by a FIFA People & Culture business partner in Miami, confirms she worked full-time for FIFA from August 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025; the Post reports Infantino’s wife, Leena, had originally hired her before she held any work permit at all. FIFA insiders had warned that the arrangement was untenable — “You cannot keep paying her through us, because she’s going to get deported,” one said, adding, “If she gets caught by ICE, we would have a problem” .

The fix described in that report runs through Carlos Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs banker who served as Infantino’s senior adviser and, from May 2025, as a Trump-appointed senior adviser to the White House’s World Cup task force — a body that included Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and operated out of the same department that later issued the new permit. According to three sources with direct knowledge, Cordeiro instructed a subordinate at a May 2024 meeting to submit their own Miami rental address on the housekeeper’s immigration filings instead of the residence where she actually lived and worked for the Infantino family — an allegedly false address that, per the report, triggered panic when federal officers scrutinized her records ahead of a fall 2025 immigration interview. Around that time, Infantino asked Cordeiro to leverage his government contacts to help her obtain new authorization, the Post reports; in January 2026 she received a new C11 parole work permit from the Department of Homeland Security under Noem. Immigration attorney Michael Wildes, who reviewed the account for the Post, said such re-issuance is “entirely out of reach for the vast majority of noncitizens” and suggested she “may have received preferential treatment.” One source with direct knowledge of the matter framed it against the administration’s own policy: “If Infantino and his wife hired a maid without legal status, they have spat in Trump’s face and his policy agenda.” FIFA and Infantino did not respond to the Post’s detailed questions; Cordeiro declined to address his alleged role, saying he was “not aware of the story”; a DHS spokesperson did not respond .

A third report, published November 5, 2026, turned to Miami International Airport’s own VIP protocol logs. Records released to the Post show Infantino’s wife and daughters appearing 125 times across 95 escort records since January 2024, with no corresponding entry for Gianni on the dates of 63 of them — Leena Infantino appears 46 times, nearly twice her husband’s 24 appearances. The logs tagged daughter Dahlia 29 times, Alessia 25, Sabrina 18 and Shania Serena seven, including 11 records with neither parent present; his sisters Daniela and Mirella received the perk twice during the World Cup, logged as “President’s Guest” rather than family, and during a 39-day tournament window the family rang up 15 VIP records with Gianni on none of them. The day after the World Cup final in New Jersey, the protocol office logged Leena and all four daughters together . The Post also saw internal airport correspondence showing FIFA demanding the red-carpet treatment for daughters Alessia, Sabrina and Dahlia for a Doha trip “with their dogs,” and airport spokesman Greg Chin confirmed FIFA made the requests — saying that because Infantino heads a nongovernmental organization and staffers were free, “the service was granted” .

The courtesies themselves are substantial: a protocol officer fast-tracks VIPs through check-in, can request a special security lane and early boarding, walks guests “to the aircraft door,” and escorts arrivals from abroad through the “Diplomatic Lane” at immigration — while the airport’s rulebook lists 27 qualifying VIP slots from Supreme Court justices to school board members, mentions “spouses” only beside chiefs of diplomatic missions, and says nothing about family members, relatives or pets qualifying under the NGO-boss slot Infantino fits. Chin insisted the escorts cannot skip any step of customs or security screening and that every international VIP request goes to US Customs and Border Protection for vetting; he did not say whether federal officers were told the FIFA boss was not on the plane. Antoine Duval of the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague told the Post the arrangement “could constitute an abuse of position” under FIFA’s code barring officials from using their jobs “for private aims or gains” — “a misuse of FIFA’s resources for his own private purpose” if Infantino asked FIFA to arrange his family’s private travel — and Arnout Geeraert of Utrecht University, former chair of Belgian soccer’s integrity panel, said that by the basic rules of good governance “this is an abuse of position, an abuse of power” . The report also compiles the surrounding record: per the Post, ESPN reported last month that Infantino received $1.72 million in 2024 from FIFA’s U.S. World Cup nonprofit, on top of a pay package worth about $4.9 million — claims FIFA “strongly rejects” — and it recounts the September disclosure that FIFA paid a British public relations firm to promote his re-election bid, which FIFA denied until a leaked email pitch confirmed the arrangement .

Public Reaction and Consequences

The reaction inside FIFA has been consternation rather than consequence so far: several senior officials questioned both the calculation that Infantino should contribute nothing toward his American tax bill and the message it sent about the privileges of the organization’s most senior figures, and at least one official internally questioned the necessity of the security detail provided for Infantino’s wife . The July sell-off revelation produced a global outcry, with governments and global soccer officials publicly calling into question his suitability to continue running the 122-year-old institution . UEFA’s letter formally challenging the independence of the official who approved his tax benefit — and asking for that official’s recusal from the election process — is the most concrete institutional response to date . Takeshi Okada, a two-time World Cup coach, resigned as vice president of the Japanese soccer federation in protest at the politics surrounding FIFA during Infantino’s re-election campaign . On the housekeeper report, the Post’s sources describe an organization that treated the arrangement as an open secret — “They behave like kings and queens and think they are entitled to have servants,” one source with direct knowledge said — while Reuters reported, per the Post, that FIFA would release some key documents linked to the sell-off furore only after forcing its own officials to sign NDAs to keep their contents from leaking to the media . On the airport records, the outside response has come from governance experts rather than institutions: Geeraert noted FIFA could simply cast the escorts as “standard protocol for security reasons” and called its ethics committee “a notorious black box,” while Duval said “many” complaints against Infantino “were buried” by the panel’s investigators and that he “would not bet on FIFA seriously investigating” its own president until he is a “lame-duck” — the committee’s members being elected by a FIFA Congress “whose majority is controlled by Infantino.” A former White House official who managed federal VIP arrivals told the Post the arrangement is “a gross misuse of government resources” that would leave career protocol officers “disgusted,” saying “these courtesies are offered as part of wider statecraft,” and former diplomat and State Department director Josh Paul added that the perks “are not intended as gifts” .

Current Status

FIFA’s response to the tax report has been a denial of wrongdoing rather than a reversal: “All FIFA’s internal regulations and processes, and all applicable laws, have been followed,” the organization told the Times, adding that it “ensures all reporting and taxation requirements are met” and that payments to senior management are independently audited . FIFA declined to explain why figures connected to Infantino personally advised on his tax affairs; Chiomento did not respond to multiple requests for comment, Zollinger declined citing attorney-client privilege, and Rizzello declined citing client confidentiality . The Post reported it sought comment from FIFA, Infantino and Chiomento . On the housekeeper report, FIFA and Infantino did not respond to the Post’s detailed questions, Cordeiro declined to address his alleged role, and no government agency has confirmed any inquiry — DHS did not respond to questions about why the new work permit was granted . No criminal charge, regulatory investigation, suspension or FIFA disciplinary proceeding has been announced against Infantino on any of the reports; the findings rest on documents, leaked materials and sources who spoke mostly anonymously. On the airport report, the Post says it sought comment from FIFA, the State Department, US Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security; the airport defended the service as granted under its case-by-case review, and no ethics complaint or FIFA disciplinary proceeding over the escorts has been disclosed. He remains FIFA president and is standing for re-election in March 2027 .

Impact on Their Career/Life

The Times frames the undisclosed tax benefit as part of Infantino’s “biggest crisis” — a striking position for a leader who came to power on the transparency reforms adopted after the 2015 corruption scandal and whose own bylaw requires top-leadership compensation to be public . With the vote months away, the reporting hands his critics a concrete grievance — multi-million-dollar personal benefits approved by a friend and kept out of the filings — at the same moment as the UEFA challenge to the independence of his election overseer, and it converts his re-election from a coronation into a referendum on whether the transparency era he inherited survived his tenure . The housekeeper allegations compound that position from a second direction: per the Post, they place him in direct tension with the immigration policy of the president he has assiduously courted, and they strike at the cleanup image that defined his 2016 rise, leaving his March 2027 re-election bid fighting on two fronts at once . The airport-perks report opens a third front that is institutional rather than legal: the experts’ charge is not that a law was broken but that FIFA’s machinery was treated as a family concierge service — “shareholders would react to something like this,” Geeraert said, while FIFA answers to federations who would ask “So what’s the problem here?” — and a gap his March campaign must close even if FIFA’s own ethics panel, in the experts’ telling, never acts .

Sources

• The New York Times, “FIFA Quietly Paid Millions in Gianni Infantino’s Taxes,” November 2, 2026 source
• New York Post, “FIFA paying millions of embattled boss Gianni Infantino’s US tax bill: report,” November 2, 2026 source
• New York Post, “FIFA boss Infantino enlisted Trump adviser to secure work permit for undocumented maid: sources,” November 3, 2026 source
• The Philadelphia Inquirer (syndicated from The New York Times), “FIFA quietly paid millions in taxes for its president,” November 2, 2026 source
• Insideworldfootball, “FIFA paid $4m of Infantino’s tax bill in the US but failed to disclose the sum to its members,” November 2, 2026 source
• New York Post, “FIFA’s Gianni Infantino accused of ‘abuse of power’ over VIP Miami airport perks for wife, kids: experts,” November 5, 2026 source
• New York Post, “Exclusive | FIFA lied about paying for PR to save Gianni Infantino — days after hired-gun agency launched global blitz,” September 29, 2026 source