Norway's soccer federation said Thursday its board of directors will consider filing a formal complaint to Fifa ethics investigators at its next meeting, likely on 6 August, over Donald Trump's role in clearing Folarin Balogun from a mandatory one-game ban at the World Cup.
Norwegian federation president criticizes Fifa
“We need our leader in Fifa to say that this was an error,” Norwegian federation president Lise Klaveness told the Times in an interview published Thursday. After Trump called Fifa president Gianni Infantino, a one-game ban for Balogun's red-card tackle against Bosnia and Herzegovina was deferred so he could play against Belgium with a quarterfinals place at stake. Belgium beat the US 4-1 after a chaotic 36 hours at the World Cup.
“We all know that this verdict was influenced from external forces and did not have the proper process,” Klaveness told the Times of the Fifa ruling that was unprecedented in the past 60 years at World Cups. “When you bend a rule like this, you're on a slippery slope that will put the whole game at risk,” said the former Women's World Cup player for Norway, who is an elected member of European soccer body Uefa's executive committee.
Broader concerns over Fifa's independence
Klaveness is a lawyer and judge who has positioned the Norwegian federation as a conscience in world soccer since her election in 2022. “It is a worry for the game when you compromise fundamental rules of the game,” she said Thursday about not enforcing Balogun's ban. Norway previously joined a London-based NGO's complaint to the Fifa ethics committee alleging Infantino breached a statutory duty of political neutrality, including by creating a peace prize to award to Trump at the World Cup draw in December.
The close personal and political ties between Trump and Infantino include the US president believing the soccer official could be a good pick as next secretary general of the United Nations, the New York Post reported this week. The human rights NGO, FairSquare, also has filed an ethics complaint about the Balogun incident to the International Olympic Committee, where Infantino is an elected member, about breaching its rules on political neutrality.
Fifa and the IOC rarely acknowledge or provide updates on potential cases before their ethics bodies. The independence of Fifa's process to handle complaints alleging unethical conduct has been questioned since the lead investigator and judge both were replaced in 2017, in the second year of Infantino's presidency. Fifa has yet to publish documents explaining how its disciplinary judges reached verdicts about Balogun or other World Cup players.
