October 8 – Former Swiss national team and Tottenham Hotspur player Ramon Vega has said he wants to make another run for the FIFA presidency.
Vega launched a challenge to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, a fellow Swiss, in 2019, but fell short of the five nominations needed to get him to the polls.
Although he had more than five national federations sympathetic to his bid, he had no FIFA members willing to stick their necks out and nominate him for fear of reprisals from Infantino and the FIFA executive.
A relative unknown outside of Europe, Vega would have struggled to convince more than 50% of FIFA members to vote him against Infantino.
“The current leadership has demoralized the game. Weak governance has damaged FIFA’s credibility and eroded trust among the world football family. We must stop this conflict from escalating,” Vega said in a statement.
“Ego-driven battles within football administration must never be allowed to harm those who matter most: the players, coaches, referees and fans around the world. They are not responsible for these conflicts. They deserve better.”
Some of the big issues surrounding Infantino in 2019 that concerned Vega are very much at the heart of FIFA’s current crisis.
On 31 January 2019, speaking to Insideworldfootball, Vega referred to issues surrounding the proposed $25 billion sale of FIFA’s international competition calendar to a Softbank-backed consortium.
“One of the most important issues we have to face as a football family is that of financial transparency. We have a proposal before the FIFA Council for what is increasingly looking like the sale of the international to a third-party rights holder, whose identity we do not know,” Vega said in 2019.
“When the FIFA president was questioned about the identity of the investor, potentially the future owner of most of the international soccer revenue as the deal was presented, he refused to say who it was. He said he signed non-disclosure agreements. Then he said there was a time limit on the deal and they had to sign,” he continued.
Having set a time limit, the idea did not die, but came back with a working group chaired by FIFA president Gianni Infantino. “This is a very clear and dangerous conflict of interest. Then we hear that his top lawyers had advised him that this deal couldn’t be done. Now his chief of staff has been fired. What’s going on here?” Vega said in 2019.
There is a worrying and recurring pattern of behavior with Infantino’s attempts to sell FIFA’s commercial rights in 2026, this time to an entity funded by Thrive Capital that has ties to US President Donald Trump. Thrive is run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
In 2026 Vega says: “Football is in emergency, on life support. We can’t wait any longer. FIFA needs new leadership and fundamental reform.
“We need to bring the football family together, restore trust, bring stability and modernize FIFA’s governance. This requires decisive change, not aesthetic tweaks.”
His sentiments are widely shared among FIFA members, but it remains to be seen whether he can mount a serious challenge for the FIFA presidency.
The deadlines for announcing the candidacy to stand for election are November 19 and must be supported by five letters of proposal from FIFA members.
See: Ramon Vega is locked up for the attack on the FIFA presidential palace
Vega says no boardroom in the world would accept FIFA’s lack of transparency.
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