A complaint alleging FIFA president Gianni Infantino has breached rules on political neutrality in his dealings with United States President Donald Trump has been submitted to the International Olympic Committee.
Human rights group FairSquare says Infantino – who became an IOC member in 2020 – has repeatedly breached the Olympic Charter and the IOC's code of ethics, most recently in his handling of the Folarin Balogun affair.
The United States striker’s one-match ban was suspended by FIFA’s disciplinary committee, freeing him up to play in their World Cup last-16 match against Belgium.
That followed a phone call from President Trump to Infantino, with the Swiss insisting FIFA’s committees are entirely independent.
The Times has reported that the disciplinary committee chair Mohammad Al Kamali made the key decision to suspend the ban alone, having never been the sole arbiter in any published previous disciplinary cases.
FIFA has offered no explanation of why the ban was suspended.
FairSquare’s complaint alleges five clear breaches of the IOC’s rules on political neutrality, along with 'prima facie’ evidence of two further serious breaches – including the handling of the Balogun case.
In December FairSquare made a similar complaint to FIFA’s ethics committee. FairSquare said it had received acknowledgement that its complaint had been received, but has not had any further information.
The Norwegian football federation wrote to the FIFA ethics committee last month requesting it consider FairSquare’s complaint.
Fifty members of the European Parliament wrote to the same committee on 29 June urging it to address FairSquare’s complaint.
Meanwhile, Balogun has revealed he predicted President Trump's involvement in overturning his World Cup suspension would "cause a lot of controversy".
Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, he said: "My initial reaction was I was happy to be back in the team, but when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy, and I could almost see within my team-mates a bit of nerves, because it's something that is so unique.
"But the closer we got to the game I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise, and that's hard to avoid."
The Arsenal academy product still maintains the red card he was issued for a tackle on Tarik Muharemovic was not the correct decision.
He added: "I was in shock. It wasn’t even a tackle. I was totally in shock, I think you could see my reaction, but I just had to accept the decision and just try to be there for my team.
"When something’s not intentional it should never be a red card, so it was just an unfortunate situation, and I think it put a lot more pressure on us than we needed."
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- Folarin Balogun
Source: RTE
