A contested Fifa election is worth having even if Uefa's candidate loses

Key takeaways

• The Guardian reports that Uefa and its allies are close to choosing a candidate to stand against Gianni Infantino, possibly as early as next week.
• Candidates must confirm they are standing by 18 November, with the election itself due in March.
• Under Fifa's one-member-one-vote system, a sitting president who controls development funding holds a strong structural advantage over any challenger.
• A contested election matters because it forces a published programme, an open debate and a recorded choice, none of which happen when a president is returned unopposed.

A challenge is justified by the process, not the probability of winning

The Guardian reports that Uefa and its allies are close to settling on a candidate to oppose Gianni Infantino for the Fifa presidency, and that the choice could be approved as early as next week. The timetable is tight. Anyone standing must confirm their candidacy by 18 November, and the vote takes place in March. According to the same report, there is growing confidence that the search is close to a result, although it has had setbacks. One was a surprise U-turn by the president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa. The report also says Arsène Wenger is not thought to be among those under consideration. The identity of the eventual candidate is not yet known.

Most commentary on a story like this asks one question: can the challenger win? That is a reasonable question, but it is not the most important one. This article argues that Fifa's members, and football more widely, benefit from a contested election whatever the result. Elections in sporting bodies are rare moments of accountability. A governing body that sets the international calendar, decides how tournaments are formatted and hosted, and distributes large sums to its members should have to justify those decisions against a rival vision now and then. An uncontested election leaves that justification optional.

The argument does not depend on any particular criticism of the current leadership being correct. It depends on a simpler point. A system in which the incumbent never faces a choice has weaker incentives to explain itself than one in which it sometimes does. If Uefa can field a credible candidate, and especially one with support from outside Europe, the members get a real choice. Even a heavy defeat would leave a record of what was proposed, who backed it and what the incumbent promised in reply.

The voting structure favours incumbents, which is exactly why contests are needed

Fifa's congress elects its president on the principle of one member association, one vote. The football associations of large, wealthy countries have the same voting weight as those of small nations with modest domestic game structures. That principle has a sound basis: Fifa is a federation of national associations, not a shareholder company, and equal votes protect smaller members from being ignored.

The same structure also produces a predictable dynamic. Many smaller associations depend heavily on Fifa's development programmes for funding, facilities and administrative support. The president presides over the organisation that designs and distributes that support. This does not mean votes are bought, and nothing here suggests impropriety. It means that an incumbent can point to concrete benefits delivered, while a challenger can only promise them. Associations that have received steady support have a rational reason to prefer continuity, and confederations that have aligned with the leadership have institutional reasons to keep doing so.

When a structure tilts this strongly towards the incumbent, contests become rarer, and each one matters more. If challengers stay away because they expect to lose, there is never an election in which the incumbent's record is weighed against an alternative. Members never have to say, in a secret ballot, whether they would prefer a different direction. The structural advantage then turns into a habit of unopposed re-election, and the president's mandate rests on the absence of opposition rather than on a positive choice.

A challenge breaks that pattern even if it fails. Members who would otherwise never be asked are asked. A secret ballot gives associations a way to register a preference without exposing it publicly, and that is a protection worth using. The size of any opposition vote is information in itself, and it is information that cannot exist without a candidate.

A rival manifesto forces the incumbent to set out a programme

A second piece of evidence lies in what an election requires of the candidates. To stand, a candidate needs formal nominations from member associations and must pass Fifa's eligibility checks. Once on the ballot, they need to persuade federations across several continents. That means producing a programme: positions on the international match calendar, on how competition revenue is shared, on how tournaments are awarded, on governance and transparency, and on the balance between Fifa, the confederations, the leagues and the clubs.

A credible rival programme puts pressure on the incumbent to respond in kind. Presidents seeking re-election against opposition have to say what they would do with another term, defend contested decisions and, in some cases, adjust policies to win back wavering support. Supporters, players' representatives, leagues and clubs, who have no vote in the congress, at least get a public statement of the choices they will live with.

An unopposed candidate is under no comparable obligation. They can stand on the general claim that the organisation is in good health and let the congress endorse it. The matters that cause most friction in football's governance, including how crowded the calendar has become, how new competition formats are approved and how far players' workloads are taken into account, then pass through the election without being argued over at all. Fifa's decisions have consequences for leagues and players everywhere, so the presidential election is one of the few places where those matters can be raised at the top level.

The difficulty of building a coalition shows the value of trying

The third piece of evidence comes from the search itself. According to the Guardian, discussions with possible nominees have gathered momentum despite setbacks, among them the Asian Football Confederation president's change of course. The report does not say why that change happened, and it would be wrong to speculate.

What the episode does show is how hard it is to assemble support across confederations. A Uefa-backed candidate who drew support only from European associations would be at an obvious disadvantage in a congress where Europe holds a minority of the votes. Any serious challenger therefore needs allies in Asia, Africa, the Americas or Oceania. Building that coalition requires conversations about what other confederations want from Fifa, which Uefa might otherwise have little reason to hold.

That process has value. It makes Europe's football establishment engage with the priorities of regions whose interests differ from its own. To build a coalition, a challenger has to offer something to associations that do not share European concerns about club football and the calendar. If a candidate emerges with backing from several continents, it shows that dissatisfaction is not limited to one confederation. If no such candidate can be found, that is informative too. Either way, the effort brings into view a picture of football's politics that stays hidden when nobody tries.

The strongest case against: a doomed challenge may do more harm than good

The opposing view deserves to be taken seriously, and it has real strengths.

First, a challenge that is likely to fail can strengthen the person it targets. A large winning margin can be presented as a fresh, emphatic mandate, which is arguably more useful to an incumbent than an unopposed return. A president who has beaten a challenger can claim the members have positively endorsed the direction of the organisation, and that can make later criticism harder.

Second, contested elections in federations carry a cost in relationships. Associations and confederations that backed the losing side may fear being sidelined afterwards, whether or not that fear is justified. Even with a secret ballot, public endorsements and nominations are visible. A failed challenge can leave Uefa more isolated within Fifa than before, with less influence over the very calendar and governance questions it wanted to raise. Working quietly inside committees and negotiations might achieve more than a public contest that ends in defeat.

Third, there is the matter of perception. A challenge organised by Uefa can easily be framed as Europe, the wealthiest region in the sport, trying to reclaim control from a congress in which it is outnumbered. That framing may be unfair, but it is persuasive. It could unite the rest of the membership behind the incumbent and turn a debate about governance into one about regional power. The one-member-one-vote principle exists partly to stop the strongest football economies dominating, and a challenge seen as European self-interest risks confirming exactly that suspicion.

Finally, a rushed process carries its own risk. With nominations closing on 18 November and the candidate still unnamed, the challenger may have little time to build a programme or an organisation. A weak campaign could discredit the case for reform for years.

These are serious objections. The answer to them is not that they are wrong but that they argue for how to run a challenge, not whether to run one. A broad coalition, a programme aimed at members outside Europe and a candidate seen as more than Uefa's nominee would address most of them. The risk of an emphatic defeat is real, but the alternative, permanent unopposed re-election, gives up accountability altogether.

Evidence that would change this conclusion

Several developments would weaken the argument made here.

If the chosen candidate draws nominations and public support almost entirely from European associations, the challenge would look more like a regional power play than a contest of ideas. In that case the case against would be considerably stronger.

If the campaign produces no clear programme and rests mostly on opposition to the incumbent, the main benefit claimed above, a public argument over policy, would not happen. A contest without competing proposals offers little that an unopposed election does not.

If associations that back the challenger can later be shown to have lost influence or support as a result, the cost of contesting elections would be higher than this article assumes, and the case for working inside the institution would gain weight.

On the other hand, the conclusion would strengthen if the candidate attracts support across several confederations, if the incumbent responds with detailed policy commitments, and if the secret ballot shows a sizeable body of members wanting a different direction. Much of this is not yet known. The Guardian's report suggests an answer on the candidate could come within days, and the November deadline will show whether the search has succeeded.

Sources and further reading

• The Guardian: football coverage reporting Uefa's search for a candidate to contest the Fifa presidency and the nomination timetable.
• Fifa statutes and electoral regulations: the governing documents setting out nomination requirements, eligibility checks and the congress voting procedure.
• Uefa official communications: statements from the European confederation on governance and its relations with Fifa.
• Academic literature on sports governance: studies of accountability, voting structures and incumbency in international sporting federations.