Norway files formal FIFA complaints against Infantino over ethics and governance

Norway’s football federation has filed formal complaints with two FIFA committees against president Gianni Infantino, escalating its campaign over governance and transparency at the world game’s governing body.

The Norwegian Football Association (NFF) said on Tuesday it had made the two parallel filings — a complaint to the FIFA Ethics Committee and a referral to the Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee — over the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to Donald Trump, the lifting of USA striker Folarin Balogun’s World Cup suspension, and the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) project that would have sold minority stakes in the company running FIFA tournaments including the World Cup, Reuters reported.

The ethics filing asks the committee to examine Infantino’s conduct and that of “any other individuals identified through the investigation for potential breaches of FIFA’s Code of Ethics”. The governance filing asks whether FIFA’s “governance, financial oversight, internal controls and decision-making processes worked as intended”.

NFF president Lise Klaveness told The Times the common thread linking the three cases was Trump. The lead investor in the FFE scheme was Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared, while Trump claimed he called Infantino to ask for Balogun’s red-card ban to be reviewed — FIFA then cleared the striker to play against Belgium in the round of 16, The Times reported. Infantino created the Peace Prize last year to award to Trump without consulting FIFA’s Council.

“Fifa is in one of its biggest crises in many, many years,” Klaveness said, backing England FA chairwoman Debbie Hewitt’s calls for full disclosure of all files and communications around the Balogun and FFE cases. Infantino has insisted he had no influence over the Balogun decision, which was taken by disciplinary committee chairman Mohammad al-Kamali of the United Arab Emirates. The NFF has published its complaints on its website, and Reuters said it had contacted FIFA for comment.