FIFA President Gianni Infantino shared a video on his official Instagram account on Sunday showcasing him raising the Lebanese flag at a 2026 World Cup match, enthusiastically captioning the moment: “As a proud 🇱🇧 Lebanese citizen, it was wonderful to hold our beautiful flag on football’s biggest stage!”
About Giovanni “Gianni” Vincenzo Infantino
Born 23, March 1970) Infantino is a Swiss-Italian-Lebanese football administrator and the president of FIFA since 2016. He has also been an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member since 2020.
Following his initial election to the FIFA presidency on February 26, 2016, he was re-elected on June 5, 2019 and again on March 16, 2023. His election to IOC membership took place on 10 January 2020.
Infantino is the son of Italian immigrants from the Italian regions of Calabria and Lombardy. He acquired Lebanese citizenship through marriage, and is therefore a citizen of Switzerland, Italy and Lebanon. He studied law at the University of Fribourg. He speaks French, German and Italian as mother tongues and also speaks Arabic, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
On November 25, 2025, Infantino began the process of obtaining Lebanese citizenship, following a meeting with the president of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, and the Lebanese Football Association president, Hachem Haidar. He became a Lebanese citizen on February 16, 2026
Infantino is married to Leena Al Ashqar from Lebanon; the couple has four children. Al Ashqar worked for the Lebanese Football Federation in an administrative and event-planning capacity in the early 2000s. that is where they met . They married in 2001 and settled first in Brig, Switzerland, Infantino’s hometown.
