ESPN FC is counting down the 50 most influential men and women in football and is also ranking the Top 10 influencers in specific parts of the world, with the help of experts based in each region.
Editors' note: The below lists are independent of the overall Top 50 and designed to give another point of view on who wields power at regional level around the world.
Europe
1. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Bayern Munich CEO and European Clubs Association chairman)
2. Aleksander Ceferin (UEFA president)
3. Richard Scudamore (Premier League executive chairman)
4. Florentino Perez (Real Madrid president)
5. Jorge Mendes (agent)
6. Pep Guardiola (Manchester City manager)
7. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid player)
8. Mino Raiola (agent)
9. PIerluigi Collina (FIFA referees' committee chairman and UEFA head of referees)
10. Andrea Agnelli (Juventus president, UEFA ExCo member)
Focus on: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
It would be some exaggeration to say that the future of European club football rests in the hands of one individual, but Rummenigge is the front man for a body whose influence grows in power and may yet succeed in changing the face of the sport at we know it.
The ECA represents the interests of Europe's clubs and there have been concerns, particularly within UEFA, that its priorities lie too heavily with the biggest and strongest. Rummenigge is a Bayern Munich man, who scored prolifically for the club as a player and now heads up an ambitious board; he has hinted in the past that organisations of Bayern's size might seek to form their own Super League and one not necessarily under the aegis of UEFA.
That prospect appears to have been staved off for now, but the guarantee that 16 of the 32 Champions League group stage contenders will come from the top four leagues as of 2018-19 does not feel like the easiest of compromises with the continental governing body. However, it should achieve the ECA's goal of creating more matchups between the biggest teams and, as a result, higher television audiences and potentially revenue.
Rummenigge has been critical of Gianni Infantino's planned World Cup expansion to 48 teams, arguing it would deprive more top clubs of their leading players and cut down on preparation for the subsequent season, and that is a topic on which he might find more universal accord.
Rarely afraid to be outspoken, Rummenigge's relationship with new UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin may be an interesting sub-plot to watch over the next few years. Ceferin is already believed to be keen on renegotiating the changes to the Champions League and has drawn a firm line in the sand by saying he will not countenance any "blackmail" from certain clubs over a Super League.
Things may come to a head one day but, for now, a fragile peace seems most likely; Rummenigge and Ceferin both lead associations that have a firm need for one another and the former's remarkable career in football continues to grow in gravitas. -- Nick Ames
North America
1. Sunil Gulati (U.S. Soccer president, FIFA Council member)
2. Victor Montagliani (CONCACAF and Canadian soccer association president)
3. Decio De Maria (Mexico football federation president)
4. Philippe Moggio (CONCACAF general secretary)
5. Don Garber (MLS commissioner and Soccer United Marketing chief executive)
6. Philip Anschutz (LA Galaxy owner)
7. Kathy Carter (Soccer United Marketing president)
8. Emilio Azcarraga Jean (Televisa CEO)
10. Juan Carlos Rodriguez (Univision Deportes president) 9. Alex Morgan, player
Focus on: Sunil Gulati
Gulati has proven adept at playing the long game. The Columbia University economics lecturer has been involved on the administrative side of the game for more than 30 years and has endured his share of setbacks along the way, from losing a U.S. Soccer Federation vice-presidential election back in 1998 to missing out on the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup.
Yet Gulati has never reacted to those setbacks with anger or a shaking of fists, at least publicly. Instead, he has simply retrenched, quietly gone about his business and found a different path forward. Eight years after his stinging USSF rebuke, he was elected president, a post he still holds today. And the U.S., along with Mexico and Canada, are odds-on favorites to host the 2026 World Cup and bring the tournament back to North America for the first time since 1994.
Gulati has also risen to upper echelons of power in the international game. He was first elected to FIFA's Executive Committee in 2013 and has continued to serve on the ExCo's successor, the FIFA Council. He helped engineer Gianni Infantino's election to the FIFA presidency last year, but not before keeping his promise to Prince Ali to support him in the first round of voting.
Further, when the U.S., Canada, and Mexico presented their plan to host in 2026, it counted as a surprise that the U.S. would be stage 75 percent of the matches. But that merely speaks further to Gulati's savvy negotiating skills and ability to build consensus.
He has endured his share of criticism. His close relationship with Chuck Blazer, the recently deceased former CONCACAF general secretary, who was at the heart of the FIFA corruption scandal, has led to questions about how Gulati could not have known what was going on. But he remains unsullied by the association.
Gulati has also been criticized for accepting Infantino's apparent halting of FIFA reform efforts, including the ousting of former Audit and Compliance Committee chairman Domenico Scala. But looked at another way, it is an example of Gulati's skill at realpolitik, knowing when to give and when to press forward on the issues of the day, all in the name of advancing the interests of U.S. soccer and the wider region. -- Jeff Carlisle
South America
1. Alejandro Dominguez (CONMEBOL president)
2. Tite (Brazil manager)
3. Jorge Sampaoli (Argentina manager)
4. Oscar Washington Tabarez (Uruguay manager)
5. Jose Pekerman (Cololmbia manager)
6. Juan Antonio Pizzi (Chile manager)
7. Rafael Dudamel (Venezuela manager)
8. Tostao (writer; former Brazil player)
9. Cesar Luis Menotti (former Argentina manager)
10. Diego Maradona (former Argentina player and manager)
Focus on: Alejandro Dominguez
The task of cleaning house and regaining credibility for CONMEBOL has fallen to Dominguez, former head of the Paraguayan FA.
When the FIFA scandal broke in 2015, most of the arrests took place in Switzerland, but more than anything, this was a crisis of the Americas and, specifically, of the interface between South American football and TV networks. This was a relation born in 1987, when the Copa America was brought back to life and then, as cable became ever more important, developed with the expansion of World Cup qualifying in 1996 and of the Copa Libertadores four years later.
But the broadcasters were acquiring rights on the cheap -- to the detriment of clubs -- in return for kickbacks to officials. It was a scandal that shook the very foundations of CONMEBOL and two of its presidents -- Nicolas Leoz, in charge from 1986-2013, and Juan Angel Napout, president in 2014-15 -- have been caught up in the investigation
The new president, who has a degree in economics from the University of Kansas, is working hard to come across as a modernizer and emphasizing transparency. The organisation's website stresses the switch to better management practices, with the adoption of a new logo a clear attempt to put distance between the current regime and the past.
But Dominguez also has some roots in the old regime. He is the son of Oswaldo Dominguez Dibb, a high-profile, controversial former president of Olimpia, one of Paraguay's big two clubs. And Dominguez spent seven years as vice-president of his country's football association under Napout. Indeed, Jose Medina Segales, a Paraguayan FA director from that period, has recently cast aspersions on the past conduct of Dominguez.
The task he faces is not easy. Under pressure from clubs, CONMEBOL hurriedly announced a significant change to the South American calendar: Instead of being played one after the other, the Libertadores and the Sudamericana now take place over the entire year. The objective is to make them more lucrative, but the haste with which the change was made implies panic.
There is tension behind the scenes between clubs of Brazil, who favour the calendar year format, and those of Argentina, who would prefer an August-to-May arrangement. And the lack of consultation before announcing the change has already proved costly: Mexican clubs pulled out of the Libertadores, a serious setback to the confederation's beleaguered finances. -- Tim Vickery
Asia
1. Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa (Asian Football Confederation president)
2. Wang Jianlin (Wanda Group chairman)
3. Jack Ma (AliBaba Group founder and Guangzhou Evergrande owner)
4. Xi Jinping (China president)
5. Zaw Zaw (Myanmar football federation president)
6. Zhang Jindong (Inter, Jiangsu Suning and PPTV owner)
7. Marcello Lippi (China manager)
8. Praful Patel (AFC vice-president)
9. Hassan Al Thawadi (Secretary General Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar 2022)
10. Moya Dodd (AFC Executive Committee member)
Focus on: Sheikh Salman
Suave, sophisticated and safely ensconced in his post as president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa has few continental rivals when it comes to global influence, and at the age of 51, has time on his side should FIFA decide in the future to look outside Europe and South America for a president.
The member of the Bahraini ruling royal family first made football headlines back in 2009 when he challenged then-president Mohamed bin Hammam for the Qatari's seat on the FIFA Executive Committee. Bin Hamman said that he saw the vote also as a referendum on his presidency and that he would step down if he lost. He very nearly did in a campaign that became incredibly bitter. It was just the grounding Salman needed in Asian football politics and the Manchester United fan vowed he would return.
After Bin Hamman was suspended from football for life by FIFA's Ethics Committee, Sheikh Salman ran for AFC president in 2013 against Yousuf Al Serkal of the UAE and Thailand's Worawi Makudi and, with the help of influential Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, also president of the Olympic Council of Asia, won easily. Salman was elected unopposed in 2015 and also ensured that the AFC president had an automatic seat on FIFA's main decision-making committee.
The following year, he ran for the FIFA presidency and, with support from much of Africa and Asia, as well as the United States initially, it looked as if Salman would defeat Gianni Infantino, but it was not to be.
The FIFA race opened Salman up to greater scrutiny than he receives in Asia and he has denied any wrongdoing in response to allegations of involvement in identifying footballers who had taken part in pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in 2011.
His overall record at the AFC is mixed. There has been greater support for women's football, and, of late, growing teeth in the confederation's punishments for corruption. But the transparency promised ahead of his 2013 election win has not been abundant. Salman also prefers not to visit the organisation's headquarters in in Kuala Lumpur; those who want a meeting usually head to Bahrain. -- John Duerden
Africa
1. Ahmad Ahmad (African football confederation president)
2. Patrice Motsepe (Mamelodi Sundowns owner)
3. Fran Hilton-Smith (South Africa Football Association assistant technical director)
4. Moise Katumbi (TP Mazembe owner)
5. Amaju Pinnick (Nigeria Football Federation president, CAF Executive Committee member)
6. Philip Chiyangwa (Council of Southern Africa Football Associations president)
7. Isha Johansen (Sierra Leone FA president, CAF Executive Committee member)
8. Mortada Mansour (Zamalek president)
9. James Kwesi Appiah (Ghana manager)
10. John Shittu (agent)
Focus on: Ahmad Ahmad
Prior to being persuaded to run for the highest office in African football, Ahmad was neither an influential nor consequential member of the continent's highest decision-making body. Indeed, to paraphrase some loyalists of his opponent Issa Hayatou at the height of the election, he barely even registered on the executive committee radar despite being a member.
Now, Ahmad is the man who calls the shots and, as a central part of a new era for CAF, he is planning a far-ranging overhaul of the African system, both from a commercial and football point of view. This backing, alongside a collective alliance with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, appears to be one that will daybreak a new direction for the region.
A native of Madagascar, Ahmad talked up some bold ideas during his run for the job, including renewed focus on women's football, giving former players more of a say in the affairs of CAF and dismantling unfavourable commercial partnerships.
The new president, who has refused to take a salary for his work in the role, will consider possible improvements to the African footballing calendar and Ahmad might also pursue expansion of the African Nations Cup to 24 teams.
It is the first step toward taking game-changing decisions that would have a lasting impact on the continent's game. He may not have previously registered on many people's radar, but it is to Ahmad that everyone in African football now looks to see in which direction the wind blows. -- Colin Udoh