{"id":118839,"date":"2026-11-05T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T12:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/118839\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T12:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T12:40:12","slug":"japan-fas-kozo-tashima-to-stand-against-infantino-for-fifa-presidency-fifa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/118839\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan FA\u2019s Kozo Tashima to stand against Infantino for Fifa presidency | Fifa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Japan Football Association\u2019s honorary president, Kozo Tashima, \u2060has announced his intention to stand against Gianni Infantino<\/a> in March\u2019s Fifa presidential election.<\/p>\n

Tashima is the second challenger to declare in advance of the 18 November deadline after the former Tottenham defender Ramon Vega, although it remains unclear whether Vega has the backing of five of Fifa\u2019s 211 member associations, which is required to take a place on the ballot in Rabat.<\/p>\n

The widely respected Tashima will have no problem in securing the nominations and is understood to have acted with the blessing of Uefa, which has led the opposition to Infantino after his failed attempt to sell off<\/a> a 20% stake in Fifa\u2019s commercial rights this summer.<\/p>\n

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The former Japan international has many allies in Europe and had talks with Uefa officials at last month\u2019s Asian Football Confederation (AFC) congress in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful that I can make this announcement with the full support of the Japan Football Association,\u201d Tashima told the Japanese newspaper Sports Nippon. \u201cIt\u2019s not about winning or losing but about conveying to the world the honest, sound and upright attitude that Japanese football has built. What Fifa \u2060needs now are these values that we have protected. I have decided to run in order \u200cto make this appeal to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The declaration is an intriguing development after the AFC congress concluded with its president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, publicly endorsing Infantino<\/a> in a major U-turn, having previously sided with Uefa and Concacaf \u2013 the North and Central American and Caribbean confederation \u2013 in attempting to depose him.<\/p>\n

Tashima could split the AFC vote and is certain to pick up votes from Europe and Concacaf, although other candidates could emerge.<\/p>\n

Uefa has spent months attempting to find a candidate to stand<\/a> against Infantino, but may have concluded that a non-European challenger will fare better owing to widespread resentment about its perceived dominance of the sport.<\/p>\n

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Infantino has the backing of several leading countries in the AFC, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and of Africa and South America, so is expected to canter towards the 106 votes required to be re-elected for a fourth term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Japan Football Association\u2019s honorary president, Kozo Tashima, \u2060has announced his intention to stand against Gianni Infantino in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,33],"class_list":["post-118839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-japan","tag-nihon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}