The president of the Norwegian football association has called for the abolition of the FIFA Peace Prize, which was awarded to U.S. president Donald Trump, and says she supports an ethics complaint against Gianni Infantino, the president of world football’s governing body.
Lise Klaveness, who will represent her federation at the FIFA Congress on Thursday and is on the UEFA executive committee, said the organisation should maintain “an arm’s length distance” from world leaders.
Trump was given the Peace Prize by Infantino at the draw for this summer’s World Cup in Washington D.C. on December 6.
The prize was announced by FIFA in November — without prior approval from its board, the FIFA Council — in order “to reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world”.
The timing of the announcement and Infantino’s strong relationship with Trump led many to assume that the award was created essentially as a consolation prize for Trump after the U.S. president was overlooked for the Nobel Peace Prize, the world’s most prestigious award of its kind.
Klaveness believes that FIFA, which is supposed to remain politically neutral, does not have the “mandate” nor resources to give out a Peace Prize.
“We want to see (the FIFA Peace Prize) abolished,” Klaveness said in a roundtable with international media, including The Athletic, on Monday.
“We don’t think it’s part of FIFA’s mandate to give such a prize. We think we have a Nobel institute that does that job independently already.
“We think it’s important for football federations, confederations and FIFA to try and avoid situations where this arm’s length distance to state leaders are challenged. These prizes will typically be very political if you don’t have really good instruments and experience to make this independent.
“To have a jury and criteria is full-time work. It’s so sensitive. From a resource angle and from a mandate angle but, most importantly, from a governance angle, I think it should be avoided also in the future.”
FIFA did not announce nominees for the Peace Prize, and spokespeople for the governing body would not say how or by whom the winner would be chosen, when asked.
FIFA’s ethics committee has since been asked to investigate Infantino for “repeated breaches” of the governing body’s rules on political neutrality over his relationship with Trump.
Human rights campaign group FairSquare wrote a letter of complaint to FIFA, alleging that Infantino has “committed four clear breaches” of his organisation’s neutrality rules.
Klaveness supports FairSquare’s efforts, and added: “We have been outspokenly critical of the process because it wasn’t anchored in the FIFA Council and it’s also, in our opinion, outside of the FIFA mandate to make such a prize.
“It should also be assessed if it’s a breach of the political neutrality. That will be up to the ethical committee to assess.
“We think it’s important not to just say things in (the) media but we have checks and balances within the organisation. First and foremost we support that FairSquare has made the complaint and that it should be addressed, it should be assessed and it should be a transparent process.”
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, has since given her medal to Trump, citing his commitment to her country’s freedom.
Faced with criticism for awarding Trump FIFA’s prize, Infantino has doubled down, insisting the U.S. president “objectively…deserves it”.
“It’s not just Gianni Infantino who said it… (there’s) a Nobel Peace Prize winner who said this,” Infantino told Sky News in February.
“He was instrumental in resolving conflicts and saving lives and saving thousands of lives.”
Klaveness has been an outspoken critic of FIFA and in 2022 she gave a speech in Doha ahead of the draw for the winter World Cup in Qatar, in which she said the governing body had “a long way to go” in addressing concerns over “human rights, equality and democracy”. Klaveness, though, is not planning a similar intervention at Thursday’s Congress in Vancouver, Canada.
