Norway's soccer federation is considering filing a formal ethics complaint against Fifa following Donald Trump's intervention that cleared Folarin Balogun from a mandatory one-game ban at the World Cup. The Norwegian federation's board of directors will likely discuss the complaint at its next meeting on 6 August.
Norwegian president slams Fifa's decision
"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. Klaveness, a former Women's World Cup player for Norway and an elected member of Uefa's executive committee, described the situation as a "slippery slope" that endangers the integrity of the game.
After Trump called Fifa president Gianni Infantino, a one-game ban for Balogun's red-card tackle against Bosnia and Herzegovina was deferred, allowing him to play against Belgium with a quarterfinals place at stake. Belgium won 4-1 after a chaotic 36 hours at the World Cup, with Belgium players reportedly fired up by the controversy.
Unprecedented rule bending
"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, which 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."
Klaveness, a lawyer and judge, 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.
Previous ethics complaints
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 ties between Trump and Infantino include the US president believing the soccer official could be a good pick as next UN secretary general, the New York Post reported this week.
The human rights NGO FairSquare also filed an ethics complaint about the Balogun incident to the International Olympic Committee, where Infantino is an elected member, alleging breaches of political neutrality rules. 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 has been questioned since the lead investigator and judge were replaced in 2017, in Infantino's second year as president. Fifa has yet to publish documents explaining how its disciplinary judges reached verdicts about Balogun or other World Cup players.
