Japan's Kozo Tashima to challenge Infantino for FIFA presidency, a first for his country

Kozo Tashima is set to become the first person from Japan to run for the FIFA presidency, after announcing he will stand against Gianni Infantino in football's governing body's election in March. The 68-year-old, who has served the game as a player, a coach and a bureaucrat, has a reputation for being a safe pair of hands.

Tashima says his decision was based on a belief that, in this age of business and money, sport must firmly uphold its integrity. "The worst thing would be if he [Infantino] were to continue without an election," he told reporters after announcing his candidacy. "I feel this is a test of whether FIFA has the ability to cleanse itself."

Tashima first started playing football after watching the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Born in southern Kumamoto, he captained his team to the title in Japan's prestigious national high school championship.

With no professional football in Japan at the time, Tashima had ambitions of becoming a PE teacher and enrolled at a university, where he was called up to play for Japan's full national team. He joined a club in Japan's amateur league after graduating but soon retired as a player and went to Germany to study to become a coach.

He studied at the German Sport University Cologne and said the experience changed the way he saw sport's purpose in society. He described his profound shock at the players' superior skills and the way football was viewed there, saying that even back in 1980 the training in Germany was hugely scientific and systematic — everything seemed like a different world from Japan.

Tashima returned home determined to use what he had learned in Germany to help develop Japanese football. He coached a university team before joining the Japan Football Association (JFA), where he worked on development programmes and coached the country's national teams at various youth levels. He rose through the JFA ranks and was elected president in 2016, while also serving on the Asian Football Confederation executive committee and the FIFA Council.

His reign as JFA chief saw him fire Japan coach Vahid Halilhodzic two months before the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Halilhodzic, who was unpopular with the players, was replaced by Akira Nishino, and Japan reached the last 16, where they were eliminated by Belgium. "Some people told me that I wasn't the one who hired Halilhodzic so it wouldn't be my fault if the team lost," Tashima said. "But as president, all the responsibility lay with me."

Tashima stepped down as JFA chief in 2024 and was named honorary president. One of the few times he appeared outside the sport pages was in March 2020, when he became one of the first public figures in Japan to contract coronavirus.

Tashima said he was troubled by FIFA's shock decision to lift a ban for United States player Folarin Balogun at this year's World Cup, following an intervention by US President Donald Trump. He said he also had a problem with the travel restrictions placed on Iran's World Cup team by American authorities.

Tashima, who has the JFA's backing, said his presidency bid was "not about winning or losing". "What matters is sharing with the world the integrity that Japan's football has built over the years," he said, adding that he wanted to contribute to the further development of world football.