Alderweireld Supports Kompany for FIFA President

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

Not a career administrator. Not a lawyer in a suit. A centre-back.

Speaking to Hajper, the former Belgium and Tottenham defender revealed he sees the current Bayern Munich boss as the ideal figure to lead the global game in the years ahead, arguing that football’s most powerful office needs someone who has actually lived the sport.

“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 collected back-to-back Bundesliga titles. His coaching career follows a decorated playing journey that brought trophies in both England and Belgium, and a long spell as captain and standard-bearer at Manchester City.

For Alderweireld, that blend of elite playing experience and leadership is exactly what the game’s top office is missing.

The pair shared Belgium’s back line 47 times, anchoring a golden generation that carried the national team deep into major tournaments. From those years together, Alderweireld insists Kompany always thought beyond the next match or the next medal.

Alderweireld revealed that even during Kompany’s playing days, the defender spoke about wanting to shape football’s future, long before any clear path into management emerged. The idea was bigger than tactics or team selection; it was about influence.

That vision, Alderweireld argues, is what FIFA needs at a time when its current leadership faces heavy scrutiny.

His endorsement comes against the backdrop of ongoing criticism of current FIFA president Gianni Infantino, whose route to the top came through the corridors of UEFA rather than through a professional playing career. For Alderweireld, that distinction matters.

“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.

“We’re football fans too. We played the game. We know how it is. What it is to be a player and a fan.”

The criticism cuts to the heart of a wider debate: who should shape football’s future — businessmen and administrators, or people steeped in the game’s culture?

For Alderweireld, the answer is obvious. He wants “football people” in charge, and he points to recent proposals as evidence of how far the sport can drift when commercial ideas trump sporting sense.

“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 one example encapsulates his fear: that the match itself, the 90 minutes that matter, is slowly being squeezed by spectacle and sales.

“The most beautiful thing about the sport is its traditions,” Alderweireld added. “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 fits that role perfectly — a modern coach with a sharp tactical brain, a former captain who understands dressing rooms and boardrooms, and a figure who, in Alderweireld’s eyes, still sees football first as a passion, not a product.

Kompany is busy chasing titles with Bayern. But if the sport does one day turn to a former centre-back to run the world game, Alderweireld has already cast his vote.