Infantino receives Lebanese passport during Beirut visit after citizenship granted

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has received a Lebanese passport during a visit to Beirut, months after he and his family were granted Lebanese citizenship by President Joseph Aoun.Infantino attended Lebanon’s Interior Ministry to complete the formal process, filing documents and providing biometric data before being issued with a blue Lebanese passport. He later met Aoun as part of the visit.Infantino said: “I’m very proud and very happy to be here in Beirut at the Ministry of Interior to finally get my Lebanese passport. I love Lebanon.”Infantino, who already holds Italian and Swiss citizenship, is married to Lebanese citizen Lina al-Ashkar. The citizenship grant has drawn attention inside Lebanon because the country’s nationality law generally prevents Lebanese women from passing citizenship to foreign spouses and children, while Lebanese men married to foreign women automatically pass nationality to their children and can make their wives eligible for citizenship after a set period.The decision to grant citizenship to Infantino and his family is therefore being viewed in the context of a long-running domestic debate about reform of the citizenship law and equal treatment for Lebanese women and their families.For Infantino, the passport is another personal link to a region where FIFA has been actively expanding its commercial and political footprint through tournament hosting, investment and governance relationships. FIFA has increased its presence across the Middle East in recent years, including major event delivery and new commercial partnerships, while Infantino has also used high-profile regional platforms for public diplomacy around football development and tournament legacy.The visit comes at a politically sensitive moment for global football governance, with FIFA’s leadership under regular scrutiny over how it balances sport, geopolitics and its relationships with national associations. Infantino has argued repeatedly that football should be a unifying force, while critics have questioned FIFA’s willingness to take consistent positions when conflicts and political disputes intersect with international competition.