Alderweireld's Bold Choice for FIFA President: Vincent Kompany
Toby Alderweireld has put a bold name forward for one of football’s most powerful seats – and it is not a career administrator.
The former Belgium and Tottenham defender believes Bayern Munich boss Vincent Kompany would be the ideal future president of FIFA, arguing that the global game desperately needs a leader forged on the pitch, not in boardrooms.
Alderweireld’s surprise pick for world football’s top job
Asked by Hajper who he would choose to run the sport, Alderweireld did not hesitate.
“Who would be my pick to be the next president of FIFA? Vincent Kompany,” he said. “He would be my president, always.”
It is a striking endorsement. Kompany is only 40 and still in the early stages of his managerial career, but his CV already carries heavyweight authority. He is in charge of German giants Bayern, where he has delivered back-to-back Bundesliga titles. Before that came a decorated playing career, collecting trophy after trophy in England and Belgium and captaining both club and country.
Alderweireld knows him as more than just a serial winner. The pair shared Belgium’s back line 47 times, anchoring a golden generation together. From that vantage point, he insists Kompany has always thought beyond the next game or the next season.
Alderweireld revealed that, during their playing days, he never initially pegged Kompany as a future manager. The ambition, he says, ran deeper than tactics and training sessions.
“He always talked about going on a mission to change football,” Alderweireld explained. “But maybe it’s his mission to protect football.”
A shot at Infantino and the ‘businessmen’
The backing comes at a time when current FIFA president Gianni Infantino faces sustained criticism over the direction of the sport. Infantino, who climbed the ladder through UEFA’s administrative ranks, never played professionally. For Alderweireld, that is exactly the problem.
“It’s very important that the FIFA president is someone who played the game and knows the game,” he said.
Alderweireld drew a clear line between those who grew up in the stands and on the pitch, and those who arrived through corporate doors. He spoke of his own childhood, travelling on buses to away matches, living the game long before the wages and the bright lights of the Premier League and Champions League.
“We've all been a fan. Then we've become a football player. We know both sides,” he said. “We're not just people who made good money out of playing in the Premier League and Champions League.
“We’re football fans too. We played the game. We know how it is. What it is to be a player and a fan.”
That lived experience, he argues, is exactly what is missing when big decisions are made. He pointed to the World Cup as a symbol of how far things can drift when commercial spectacle overwhelms sporting sense.
“Look at the World Cup. A 20-minute show at half-time? That’s where you need someone who knows football to say no.”
Protecting tradition from the spectacle
For Alderweireld, this is not a nostalgic rant against progress. He accepts that innovation has its place. But he is adamant that the sport’s core identity is under threat if “football people” are not the ones drawing the line.
“The most beautiful thing about the sport is its traditions,” he said. “New things have their place too but we need to protect the traditions as well and that’s why you need football players, football people who have been around the game, to keep the businessmen in check.”
In his mind, Kompany embodies that balance: a modern thinker with deep roots in the game, a figure who has seen football from the dressing room, the dugout and the national-team captaincy.
Whether Kompany would ever trade the touchline for the corridors of power is another matter. But in Alderweireld’s eyes, if football is serious about protecting its soul, the next great leader should be someone who has felt the game under their boots – not just in a board report.
