He made multiple flights in a single day, accumulating nearly 60,000 miles and spending over 100 hours in the air.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino logged substantial flight time throughout the 2026 World Cup, the most geographically expansive edition to date. He traveled extensively across North America for matches, meetings and other official engagements, covering three nations, 16 cities and four time zones, with the tournament concluding with the final in New Jersey.
Beginning with a June 9 flight from Los Angeles to Mexico City ahead of the opening match, the Gulfstream averaged more than one flight per day, with several days featuring three or more flights, according to FlightAware.
In addition to match attendance, Infantino’s schedule included a New York interview on Fox & Friends and a Miami FIFA summit with representatives from all 211 member associations. He also traveled to Doha to attend the funeral of Qatar’s former emir before returning to the United States for the World Cup semifinals.
FIFA declined to comment on Infantino’s travel schedule and arrangements when contacted by email.
Below is a summary of the key statistics recorded by the tournament’s governing body, which oversaw a record 104 matches across the United States, Canada and Mexico—the largest geographic footprint in World Cup history.
43 matches
Infantino attended 43 World Cup matches before the final on Sunday. FlightAware indicated that the Gulfstream was originally slated to travel from New Jersey to Miami for the third‑place match between England and France, but the flight was cancelled. On Saturday, thunderstorms produced delays at airports in the New York City area, as reported by the Federal Aviation Administration.
16 stadiums
Infantino attended at least one match at each of the 16 World Cup venues. He visited Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium most frequently, attending five games there.
Doubling up
Infantino spent several days attending two matches, frequently at stadiums separated by hundreds of miles.
21 airports
The Gulfstream primarily utilized the host cities’ major international airports, though it also operated from smaller general aviation and business airports such as Atlanta’s Fulton County Executive Airport and Miami’s Opa Locka Executive Airport.
23
The aircraft crossed international borders 23 times while traveling within North America up to the semifinals.
115 flight hours
The Gulfstream logged 115 flight hours during the tournament—excluding repositioning flights and the 29 hours required for the Qatar funeral—equivalent to nearly five full days airborne, enough for a commercial jet traveling at cruising speed to make 20 round‑trips from New York to Los Angeles.
5 hours and 44 minutes
Excluding the Qatar journey, the longest individual flight lasted 344 minutes, traveling from Miami to Seattle, where Infantino watched the Belgium‑Egypt match on June 15. That duration equals the length of three complete World Cup matches from kickoff to final whistle.
28 minutes
The shortest flight, not counting repositioning legs, was a 28‑minute hop from Seattle to Vancouver on July 6, roughly the length of a sitcom episode with commercials. Infantino attended the United States‑Belgium match in Seattle that day and then traveled to Vancouver to see Switzerland play Colombia the next day.
59,281 miles (95,403 kilometers)
The jet covered 59,281 miles (95,403 km) during the tournament, not including the Qatar trip and return for the funeral, according to AP analysis—more than the combined round‑trip distances of flights between New York and Singapore, Los Angeles and Doha, and London and Perth, Australia.
5,772 miles (9,289 kilometers)
On June 26, the most miles were logged in a single day: a morning flight from Miami to Dallas, followed by a trip to Seattle where Infantino attended the Egypt‑Iran match, and a late‑night departure from Seattle that arrived in Miami the next morning, during which he watched Colombia face Portugal.
50 per cent
FIFA has pledged to cut carbon emissions from the World Cup and related activities by 50 % by 2030 and aims for net‑zero emissions by 2040. Its 2026 World Cup sustainability and human‑rights strategy emphasizes a commitment to addressing climate change.