Toby Alderweireld Endorses Vincent Kompany for FIFA President
Toby Alderweireld has made his choice clear. If he could hand-pick the next president of FIFA, he would give the job to Vincent Kompany.
Not a career administrator. Not a lawyer in a suit. A centre-back.
The former Belgium and Tottenham defender believes the sport’s global government needs a leader who has actually lived the game, not just managed it from a boardroom. For him, Kompany fits that brief perfectly.
Kompany is currently in charge of Bayern, where he has already delivered back-to-back Bundesliga titles. At 40, he is still at the start of his managerial journey, but his football story is already packed with trophies and dressing-room authority, from his dominant years in England to his time in Belgium. Alderweireld knows that version of Kompany well – they shared Belgium’s back line 47 times.
From those nights together in the national shirt, Alderweireld is convinced his former captain has the vision to run the sport, not just a team.
“Who would be my pick to be the next president of FIFA? Vincent Kompany,” he told Hajper. “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.”
That idea did not come out of nowhere. Alderweireld says Kompany’s ambition to shape football was obvious long before he swapped boots for the dugout. Even when a coaching career wasn’t the obvious next step, the defender saw a teammate who wanted influence beyond the touchline.
His endorsement lands at a time when current FIFA president Gianni Infantino faces regular criticism, not least because he rose through UEFA’s administrative ladder rather than from a professional playing background. Alderweireld is blunt: he feels too many decision-makers simply don’t understand the culture they are reshaping.
“It’s very important that the FIFA president is someone who played the game and knows the game,” he 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.”
For Alderweireld, that journey from bus trips as a kid to elite dressing rooms matters. It creates a bond with supporters that he believes boardroom figures cannot fake.
“We’re football fans too. We played the game. We know how it is. What it is to be a player and a fan,” he added.
Then came the example that clearly grates on him: talk of turning the World Cup into a bigger spectacle at the expense of what happens on the pitch.
“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.”
That line cuts to the heart of his argument. For Alderweireld, football’s magic lies in what is already there, not in ever-louder entertainment layered on top.
“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.”
In his mind, Kompany is exactly that kind of figure: a modern coach, a decorated ex-player, and a man he trusts to say no when the game’s soul is on the line.
