​FIFA President Gianni Infantino could come under scrutiny from the International Olympic Committee after a rights group announced plans on Wednesday to file a formal complaint alleging he violated political neutrality rules by publicly backing U.S. President Donald Trump. The human-rights group FairSquare said it would submit the complaint to the IOC in relation to Infantino’s “repeated breach of political neutrality rules,” intensifying a dispute that has already prompted them to challenge FIFA’s own ethics procedures.
In related coverage, license revocation news referenced a boarding school where Paris Hilton says she was abused as a teen. Infantino has served as an IOC member since 2020. FairSquare had already filed a complaint with FIFA’s Ethics Committee in December 2025, pointing to multiple occasions on which Infantino publicly supported Trump’s actions and policies. The group’s statement asserts that Infantino’s conduct warrants investigation into possible violations of FIFA’s ethics rules.
The complaint requests that the Ethics Committee examine Infantino’s involvement in the decision to create a FIFA Peace Prize and the subsequent decision to award it to President Trump, alongside an assessment of whether these processes complied with FIFA’s procedural rules. Reuters sought comment from FIFA on the matter. In other headlines, a chess federation suspended a former world champion who had accused a fellow player of cheating.
The core issue, as FairSquare frames it, is a breach of Article 15 of the FIFA Code of Ethics, which mandates political neutrality in official duties. Violations can carry penalties ranging from fines of at least 10,000 Swiss francs (about $12,378) to a maximum two-year ban from any football-related activity. The rights group also requests scrutiny of whether decisions to introduce the annual FIFA Peace Prize and to award it to Trump at the World Cup draw were made by the FIFA Council or unilaterally by Infantino. FairSquare contends that if Infantino acted without proper authority or unilaterally, such actions would constitute a serious abuse of power.
The IOC would consider the complaint if it is brought to its ethics commission, but IOC President Kirsty Coventry indicated on Tuesday that no complaint had yet been received for consideration by the ethics panel, while also noting that the body would review it if one arrived. FIFA’s Secretariat of the Investigatory Chamber acknowledged receiving FairSquare’s complaint in December, yet the global federation has not signaled that any formal investigation has begun, according to FairSquare’s statements. In correspondence reviewed by Reuters, FIFA informed FairSquare that its secretariat could launch preliminary investigations into a potential breach of the FIFA Code of Ethics upon instruction from the Chairperson of the Investigatory Chamber.