The proposal

Donald Trump is pushing for FIFA president Gianni Infantino to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, the New York Post reported on Tuesday, citing sources close to the US president. The current office-holder, António Guterres of Portugal, will step down at the end of December 2026, and his successor is to be chosen this year. Trump regards the 56-year-old Swiss as a stronger figure than the declared candidates and believes Infantino's global profile would reinvigorate the world body.

“He is respected by everyone in the world and has a special ability to unite people.”

The Trump-Infantino bond

The relationship between the two men deepened during the 2026 World Cup, staged across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Infantino awarded Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December 2025, a gesture that La Repubblica described as compensation for a Nobel Peace Prize that never materialised. Trump later intervened to lift a suspension on a US national team striker at Infantino's request, the same newspaper reported. Those exchanges have created a personal alliance that now extends into the diplomatic arena.

The candidates and the process

Any candidate for the UN's top post must first secure approval from the Security Council, where the five permanent members (the United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom) each hold a veto, and then be confirmed by the 193-member General Assembly. Trump considers the current field weak. The most prominent names are former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and Rafael Grossi, the Argentine director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Bachelet may face resistance from Washington, while Grossi's candidacy could be contested by the United Kingdom because of the Falkland Islands dispute, the Portuguese newspaper Observador noted.

Regional rotation question

An unwritten convention suggests the next secretary-general should come from Latin America or the Caribbean, a region that has not held the post since Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru left in 1991. Infantino is European, as is Guterres, and two consecutive European mandates would be highly unusual. The only precedent was Africa's back-to-back terms with Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan, which occurred because the United States blocked the Egyptian's re-election. Several sources told the New York Post that the geographical rotation is not an insurmountable obstacle and that Infantino could receive multiple nominations.

Reactions

Paolo Zampolli, an Italian-American businessman who serves as Trump's special representative for global partnerships, endorsed the idea enthusiastically.

“Only President Trump could have such a brilliant idea.”

Zampolli argued that Infantino would do an excellent job, bringing renewed energy to the UN bureaucracy and using sport as a tool to build bridges between countries. He pointed to a structural parallel: FIFA has 211 member associations, more than the UN's 193 member states, and Infantino's record shows he knows how to manage a complex global organisation. It remains unclear whether Infantino himself wants the post or whether Trump has raised it with him directly.