Gianni Infantino is now facing pressure from two directions. Rights group FairSquare has announced it will file a formal complaint with the International Olympic Committee against the FIFA President, alleging repeated breaches of political neutrality rules through his public backing of Donald Trump.
Infantino has been an IOC member since 2020, which means the organization's ethics commission has its own jurisdiction over his conduct — separate from FIFA's. IOC President Kirsty Coventry didn't close the door on it either, saying this week: "Obviously, if they do, they would look into it."
What FairSquare is actually alleging
FairSquare first filed a complaint with FIFA's own Ethics Committee back in December 2025. That complaint cited multiple instances of Infantino publicly endorsing Trump's actions and policies — a direct breach of Article 15 of the FIFA Code of Ethics, which requires political neutrality. Penalties range from a 10,000 Swiss franc fine to a two-year ban from all football activity.
The complaint goes further than just the cheerleading. FairSquare is also demanding the Ethics Committee investigate whether the decision to create a FIFA Peace Prize — and then hand it to Trump at the World Cup draw — was approved by the FIFA Council or made unilaterally by Infantino himself. "If Mr Infantino acted unilaterally and without any statutory authority, this should be considered an egregious abuse of power," FairSquare said.
That's not a minor procedural footnote. If Infantino bypassed the Council to award a sitting U.S. president with a trophy he invented, that's a governance failure with real consequences for how FIFA is run.
FIFA has gone quiet — and it's noticed
FIFA acknowledged receiving the December complaint. That's about all it's done. No indication of an investigation being opened, no timeline, no update. Under the rules, complainants aren't even parties to proceedings, so FairSquare can be shut out entirely.
Which is exactly why the IOC route matters. It's a second pressure point — and a public one.
FairSquare's campaign has been gaining institutional weight. Fifty Members of the European Parliament wrote to FIFA's Ethics Committee in support of the complaint last week. The Norwegian Football Federation has formally backed it too, asking the committee to assess the Peace Prize award against FIFA's own neutrality statutes.
There's also the Folarin Balogun episode hanging over all of this. Trump personally urged Infantino to review Balogun's red-card ban before the U.S. played Belgium in the last 16. FIFA suspended the ban, Balogun played. The U.S. lost 4-1 anyway. Infantino denied involvement in the final call — but the sequence of events is difficult to frame as coincidence.
FairSquare launched its broader 'Reboot' campaign for FIFA reform just before the World Cup kicked off. The IOC complaint is the next escalation. Whether the IOC actually acts on it is another question entirely.
