A campaign aiming to deliver what it calls the 'biggest complaint Fifa has ever received' has been launched a week before the World Cup. The 'Reboot Fifa' initiative, led by advocacy group FairSquare, calls for an investigation into Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, over alleged breaches of the organisation's ethics code.
The complaint, to be submitted to Fifa's ethics committee after the World Cup, updates a previous submission from late last year. In that complaint, FairSquare claimed Infantino breached article 15 of the Fifa code of ethics, which requires staff to remain politically neutral, on four occasions. The alleged breaches relate to Infantino's attendance at a peace summit hosted by Donald Trump and the subsequent award of the Fifa peace prize to the former US president.
FairSquare's director, Nick McGeehan, said: 'People are rightly angered and frustrated by a range of issues, from exorbitant World Cup ticket prices to Fifa's offering of a peace prize to a man who then launched an illegal war on a World Cup participant. This campaign is about harnessing that anger and redirecting it effectively to create the political pressure required to force meaningful change at Fifa.'
The campaign has received backing from Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian football federation, who has written to Fifa's ethics committee in support of the complaint. 'We have sent it, and it is causing some political reactions,' she said. 'We will follow up, push forward, request meetings, and build momentum on this as soon as the World Cup is over.'
Fifa has defended its record, stating that it underwent 'deep-rooted governance and management reforms over the last decade' and that it has distributed more than $5bn in development funding. A Fifa spokesperson said: 'There’s been an eight-fold increase in investment in football development compared with the pre-2016 period... That is the clear evidence the organisation has been transformed.'
