7 October – The Norwegian FA (NFF) has lodged two complaints with FIFA over the conduct of Gianni Infantino. The complaints cover the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to Donald Trump, the Balogun red card case and plans to sell the World Cup.
On Tuesday, the NFF said it had made two separate requests, one to FIFA’s Ethics Committee to investigate whether the conduct of FIFA president Gianni Infantino and other officials involved breached FIFA’s Code of Ethics. The second submission was made to FIFA’s Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee to investigate FIFA’s decision-making process and possible governance failures.
In a statement, NFF president Lise Klaveness said: “The aim of these documents is simple: to establish the facts and ensure accountability under FIFA’s own rules. Football depends on trust in its institutions. When serious questions arise, they must be examined independently and transparently.”
In recent months, FIFA has been navigating its worst crisis since the FIFAGate scandal in 2015 after Infantino tried to sell a stake in World Cup commercial rights through the FIFA Forward Enterprise project, which would have seen him swap his role for a highly paid commissioner. During the World Cup, US President Donald Trump had called Infantino to ask FIFA to review Folarin Balogun’s suspension. In December, Infantino had awarded the first FIFA Peace Prize to Trump.
“Each of these cases has to be evaluated on its own facts,” Klaveness said. “Taken together, however, they raise a broader question: Was FIFA’s office, authority or influence exercised inappropriately, and were the safeguards designed to prevent it from working as intended?”
The Norwegian FA has been at the forefront of FIFA’s governance debate. In 2022, Klaveness (pictured), on the mandate of the grassroots members of the Norwegian federation, gave a famous speech at the FIFA Congress in Doha, Qatar, highlighting the plight of migrant workers and the LGBT+ community. He also supported FairSquare’s complaint to FIFA’s ethics committee.
Klaveness added: “The outcome must depend on what FIFA’s independent bodies find, both about individual conduct and how FIFA’s governance processes worked. Our responsibility is to ensure that these matters are properly examined.
“If breaches or governance failures are established, NFF expects the relevant FIFA bodies to ensure transparency, appropriate accountability and corrective action. We believe FIFA has a responsibility to deliver the relevant documents and communication in all three cases to FIFA members.”
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