Sports

Auf der Heyde Seeks Nomination to Challenge Infantino for FIFA Presidency

Errol MayfieldPublished 3m ago2 min readBased on 1 source
Auf der Heyde Seeks Nomination to Challenge Infantino for FIFA Presidency
Image by jarmoluk from Pixabay

Peter Auf der Heyde wants to take on Gianni Infantino for the presidency of FIFA, the body that governs world football. He is seeking nomination from national football associations, and he has said he would accept a salary of $1 a year if he wins.

The election takes place in March 2027. Infantino is seeking a fourth and final term as FIFA president. To stand against him, a challenger needs backing from five football associations, the organisations that run the game in each country. BBC Sport reports that candidates must confirm they are standing by 18 November.

Auf der Heyde has written to all 211 FIFA member associations asking for their nomination. He has received replies from the Jamaican Football Association and the English Football Association.

His background spans journalism and sports administration. He was sports editor of Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the German news agency, known as dpa. He now lectures in journalism at Southampton Solent University in England. He has also been president of the Grahamstown Soccer Association in South Africa. In the early 1990s he owned and managed UDW FC, a second-division club. As a journalist, he covered 13 consecutive Africa Cup of Nations tournaments, the continent's national team championship.

One idea he has put forward is an emerging nations World Cup. It would be a tournament for smaller football countries, with Eswatini, Andorra and San Marino given as examples. Those nations rarely appear on the biggest stage, and the proposal would give them a route of their own to a global event.

For most fans, the FIFA presidency is a distant job. Yet the person in that seat decides how the World Cup is organised, who hosts it and how the money from it is spent. That is why a challenge like this draws attention, even before a vote has been held.

The first real test is the nomination count. Auf der Heyde needs five associations to back him before the deadline, and the replies so far are a start rather than a total.

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