Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, Is Under Ethics Investigation for Trump Peace Prize
Gianni Infantino has been urged to look into why he gave Trump the first-ever Peace Prize by FIFA’s Ethics Committee.
The FIFA Ethics Committee has been asked to look into claims that President Gianni Infantino publicly backed US President Donald Trump in violation of the governing body’s political neutrality regulations.
Infantino’s choice to present Trump with the first FIFA Peace Prize at last week’s 2026 World Cup draw in Washington, DC, is the source of the dispute. The FIFA president has also shown support for the 79-year-old president in interviews and social media posts.
FairSquare, a human rights advocacy group, filed a legal complaint alleging that Infantino violated FIFA’s impartiality guidelines in “four clear breaches.” The letter noted that the FIFA president does not have the power to unilaterally define the organization’s goal, strategic direction, policies, or principles and contended that giving such a reward to a sitting political leader is “a clear breach of FIFA’s duty of neutrality.”
“This is what we want from a leader,” Infantino said in his remarks as he gave Trump a big golden trophy, a medal, and a diploma during the opulent ceremony held at the Kennedy Center. Mr. President, you can always rely on my assistance. Infantino’s admiration for the US president was further emphasized in a video that was shown before the event.
Infantino’s October Instagram post, in which he declared that Trump “definitely deserves” the Nobel Peace Prize, and his November interview at the American Business Forum in Miami, in which he called for public support for Trump’s policies, saying, “We should all support what [Trump] is doing [in the US] because I think it’s looking pretty good,” were also cited in the complaints.
Additionally, FairSquare cited a video that was uploaded to Instagram in January after Trump’s inauguration as proof that Infantino had openly supported the political agenda of the US president.
“This complaint is about much more than Infantino’s support for President Donald Trump’s political agenda,” stated Nicholas McGeehan, program director at FairSquare. In a broader sense, this concerns how Gianni Infantino has been able to openly violate FIFA’s regulations and operate in ways that are risky and directly at odds with the goals of the most popular sport in the world thanks to the organization’s governance structure.
