A quest to deliver the “biggest complaint Fifa has ever received” is being launched by campaigners a week before the World Cup.
With fans concerned over safety and the cost of tickets at the tournament, and complaints ongoing against Fifa from human rights organisations and football competitions, a class action-style complaint is calling for an investigation into the president, Gianni Infantino.
The “Reboot Fifa” campaign starts on Thursday and is being led by the advocacy group FairSquare, which has pushed Fifa over its governance since before the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Led by an advisory board of football activists and writers, including the historian David Goldblatt and whistleblower Bonita Mersiades, the campaign is “encouraging people to add their name to … what we hope will be the largest single complaint Fifa will ever have received about the conduct of its senior officials”.
The complaint will be submitted to Fifa’s ethics committee after the World Cup and will be an updated version of one sent to it at the end of last year, in which FairSquare claimed Infantino had on four occasions breached article 15 of the Fifa code of ethics, which requires staff to “remain politically neutral”. The complaint followed Infantino’s decision to attend a Summit for Peace held by Donald Trump and the subsequent award of the Fifa peace prize to the US president.
“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,” said FairSquare’s director, Nick McGeehan. “This campaign is about harnessing that anger and redirecting it effectively to create the political pressure required to force meaningful change at Fifa.”
Among the reforms proposed by FairSquare are: increased auditing of the billions of dollars Fifa shares with its member organisations; a separation between Fifa’s commercial and regulatory and governance functions; and improved transparency and public accountability, including expanded engagement with the media. Fifa says every recipient of funds from the organisation undergoes “a yearly central audit performed by world-class independent auditors”. It says commercial operations have been “entirely separate” from key executive bodies such as the Fifa Council and Fifa Congress since 2016. It adds that all its judicial decisions are published and that its public financial reports match the IFRS standard.
FairSquare’s original complaint received backing this week from Lise Klaveness, the president of the Norwegian football federation and campaigner for Fifa reform. The NFF has written to Fifa’s ethics committee in support of the complaint and, on the eve of the Norway squad’s departure for the World Cup, Klaveness said of the letter: “We have sent it, and it is causing some political reactions. But it is sent, and that is checked off. We will follow up, push forward, request meetings, and build momentum on this as soon as the World Cup is over.”
A Fifa spokesperson said: “Fifa underwent deep-rooted governance and management reforms over the last decade with a clear focus on transparency and on its mandate to develop football all around the world. This has been acknowledged by a number of international institutions, for instance by the Association of Summer Olympic Federations. The US Department of Justice [also] awarded $201m to the Fifa Foundation as compensation for losses suffered … as a result of decades of corruption in football.
“In the last decade Fifa has distributed more than $5bn to grow the game globally in development funding. There’s been an eight-fold increase in investment in football development compared with the pre-2016 period, bearing in mind that revenues have not increased by the same factor; the increase in investment is a result of the new Fifa being more efficient, well-governed and fit for purpose. That is the clear evidence the organisation has been transformed and is now considered a trusted partner for international agencies, NGOs and leading global brands.”
On launching the peace prize, Infantino said the award would “recognise the enormous efforts of those individuals who unite people, bringing hope for future generations”. He later defended the decision to award the prize to Trump, telling Sky News: “Objectively, he deserves it. He was instrumental in resolving conflicts and saving thousands of lives.”
He has further defended his personal relationship with Trump, saying: “I think it is absolutely crucial for the success of a World Cup to have a close relationship with the president.”
