FIFA president receives an ethics complaint for his fawning relationship with Trump

FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s fawning adoration of President Donald Trump, along with the apparent creation of an award just for him, is now the subject of an ethics complaint.

The five-count complaint, filed Monday by nonprofit advocacy group FairSquare, argues that Infantino’s cozy relationship with Trump violates Article 15 of FIFA’s Code of Ethics, which requires the governing body and its representatives to “remain politically neutral.”

“By offering clear support for President Trump’s political agenda at home and abroad, Mr Infantino has repeatedly failed in his duty to remain politically neutral, and has done so in a way that represents a clear threat to the integrity and reputation of football and FIFA itself,” FairSquare said.

Most visibly, last week Infantino awarded Trump the organization’s first FIFA Peace Prize; an award, FairSquare notes, that Infantino appears to have created and awarded to Trump without the involvement of the rest of FIFA.

The complaint cites two early December reports in The New York Times that the award “was organized so hastily” that FIFA board members and vice presidents only learned of its existence through media reports.

“Multiple sources familiar with the process, all of whom wished to remain anonymous to protect relations, said that the FIFA Council and vice presidents were not consulted or involved in the creation of a FIFA peace prize and that it was not discussed at the previous FIFA Council,” the report reads. “Nor have they participated in the selection criteria to decide a recipient.”

In November, Human Rights Watch asked FIFA to specify its criteria for awarding the prize and details of how the winner would be selected. The letter remained unanswered.

FIFA did not respond to a request for comment from News themezone.

“If Mr. Infantino acted unilaterally and without any legal authority, this should be considered an egregious abuse of power,” the complaint states.

Annabelle Gordon/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In addition to the above, the complaint details what it claims are four clear violations of political neutrality by Infantino, including:

The complaint seeks a formal investigation into Infantino’s participation in the FIFA Peace Prize and the decision to award it to Trump.

FairSquare program director Nicholas McGeehan told News themezone that while the complaint focuses on Infantino and Trump, the bigger issue is FIFA itself.

“This complaint is about much more than Infantino’s support for President Donald Trump’s political agenda,” McGeehan said.

“More broadly, it is about how FIFA’s absurd governance structure has allowed Gianni Infantino to openly disobey the organization’s rules and act in ways that are both dangerous and directly contrary to the interests of the world’s most popular sport,” he added.

In fact, FIFA has a long and less than stellar record of representing sport on the world stage.

In 2015, Swiss authorities, acting on behalf of the US Department of Justice, arrested nine FIFA officials on charges of extortion, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies spanning two decades.

The FIFA president at the time, Sepp Blatter, was not among those named in the indictment, although he was forced from his position after 17 years at the helm of FIFA as a result of the scandal.

(In a “funny” twist: The case began as an FBI investigation into an illegal gambling ring that the bureau believed had ties to Russian organized crime and operated out of Trump Tower in New York City.)

Infantino took over as FIFA president in 2016, only for the Justice Department to again allege that the 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia as a result of bribery, and the same goes for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.