Ranking every post-war FIFA president: Who is worse out of Blatter and Infantino? | OneFootball

Is Gianni Infantino FIFA’s worst-ever president? You could certainly make the case.

Infantino is not the first FIFA president to be shrouded in controversy. In fact, you could say it comes with the territory.

We’ve ranked all seven permanent FIFA presidents of the post-war era from best to worst.

7. Gianni Infantino

“Have a weird feeling this Gianni Infantino will pull off his mask to reveal Sepp Blatter,” tweeted Gary Lineker way back in 2016.

What did he know?

It’s hilarious now to think that Infantino was brought in as the supposed reform candidate. He’s done the unthinkable and actually made things worse.

6. Sepp Blatter

We bet Blatter can’t believe his luck.

The infamously slimy administrator’s reputation was in the gutter following the mother of all scandals that saw his presidency go down in flames.

Even the awarding of the 2006 World Cup saw a football legend like Franz Beckenbauer become engulfed in scandal. That’s before you get to the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments in Russia and Qatar.

The casual sexism probably wasn’t even in his top 10 crimes, with key associates like Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner becoming bywords for cartoonishly brazen corruption.

And yet his reign almost looks quaint in light of the current regime. He gets to go on social media and put out reasonable-sounding posts that paint him as a voice of reason. Funny old word.

5. Rodolphe Seeldrayers

Jules Rimet’s successor lasted a little more than a year in the job, having died in office in 1954.

Having so little time to make his mark is both a blessing and a curse for the one-time sports journalist’s legacy. He wasn’t marred by scandal, but nor did he really achieve anything.

Fifth seems about right, then.

4. Joao Havelange

Frankly, we at Planet Football probably aren’t well-equipped to do Havelange’s complicated legacy justice. Certainly not in our usual light and breezy listicle format.

If you’re enough of a football history nerd to want a proper deep dive into how Havelange shaped the sport as we know it today, we thoroughly recommend Jonathan Wilson’s ‘The Power and The Glory‘ history of the World Cup or the meticulously researched work of football anthropologist David Goldblatt.

Given such nuance, you could easily make a cogent argument for the Brazilian being bumped up or knocked down a couple of places in this ranking.

Expanding FIFA beyond a European-dominated governing body was undoubtedly a good thing. He was a visionary in that regard, and using the ‘one member, one vote’ system so effectively to get elected in the first place resulted in the Asian and African confederations making huge strides – unequivocally a good thing.

For better or worse, he is the godfather of so much of what we associate FIFA with today. That includes rampant commercialism, questionable ethical decisions and bribery scandals.

3. Stanley Rous

Rous had already earned his place in football’s history books before becoming FIFA president, having modernised the Laws of the Game during a hugely influential spell as FA secretary.

His 13 years in charge brought stability and steady growth. FIFA expanded rapidly, the World Cup continued to grow in stature and England lifted the trophy on home soil in 1966 during one of the organisation’s most successful periods.

But his embodiment of football’s old establishment, with Corinthian values that politics and sport should never mix, will forever tarnish his achievements. FIFA’s reluctance to isolate apartheid South Africa has not aged well, to say the least, while the pan-African boycott of the ’66 tournament was wholly justified.

Rous’ unpopularity in Africa eventually led to his downfall, and you can’t say he didn’t have it coming.

2. Arthur Drewry

A former fish merchant and Grimsby Town chairman. What are the odds for somebody of that background succeeding Infantino? We can but dream.

Drewry took on the role following the death of Seeldrayers, having originally been appointed the vice-president by Rimet. He won the presidency on a permanent basis convincingly and served for five years, a stint which saw him in charge during the successful 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

A steady custodian. What we’d give to describe the current incumbent as that.

1. Jules Rimet

…Still gleaming.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Rimet began his 34-year reign as FIFA president in the interwar period, and he was ultimately the man responsible for creating the World Cup. Naturally, that places him head and shoulders above all his successors, who could only ever stand on the shoulders of a giant.

While most FIFA presidents have left behind complicated legacies, Rimet remains an almost universally respected figure. A Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1956 was evidence of the admiration that his idealistic approach to international unity garnered beyond the world of football.