Alderweireld Supports Kompany for FIFA President

Toby Alderweireld has made his choice clear. If he could pick the next FIFA president, he’d hand the keys to world football to Vincent Kompany.

No politician. No career administrator. A football man.

Speaking to Hajper, the former Belgium and Tottenham defender named the Bayern Munich boss as his ideal candidate to one day lead the global game, arguing that FIFA desperately needs someone with boots-on-the-grass experience rather than a boardroom background.

“Who would be my pick to be the next president of FIFA? Vincent Kompany,” Alderweireld said. “I never thought before that he wanted to become a manager. He always talked about going on a mission to change football but maybe it’s his mission to protect football. He would be my president, always.”

Kompany, now 40, is in charge of German giants Bayern, where he has already delivered back-to-back Bundesliga titles. His coaching rise follows a decorated playing career that brought silverware in both England and Belgium and turned him into one of the defining centre-backs of his era.

For Alderweireld, that matters. The pair shared Belgium’s backline 47 times, anchoring a golden generation, and he insists Kompany has long been thinking beyond the next match or the next contract.

Alderweireld revealed that even during their playing days, Kompany spoke about wanting to shape the sport at a higher level, even if a move into management was not the obvious route at the time. The drive, he suggests, was always there.

His endorsement lands at a time when current FIFA president Gianni Infantino faces persistent criticism. Infantino climbed through the administrative ladder at UEFA and never played professionally, a profile Alderweireld believes leaves a blind spot when it comes to protecting football’s culture and traditions.

“It’s very important that the FIFA president is someone who played the game and knows the game,” Alderweireld said. “We've all been a fan. Then we've become a football player. We know both sides. When I was a child, I went to all the away games on the bus. 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 perspective, he argues, is exactly what is missing when commercial ideas collide with the matchday experience. Alderweireld pointed to proposals such as extended half-time entertainment at the World Cup as a red flag.

“The one thing that's very important is that the person who's doing the talking should be a football guy because look at the World Cup. A 20-minute show at half-time? That’s where you need someone who knows football to say no.

“The most beautiful thing about the sport is its traditions. 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.”

Alderweireld’s message is blunt: let the game be run by those who have felt it, not just monetised it. And in his eyes, Kompany is the one who could one day draw that line.