Norway’s football federation has become the first national association to publicly call on Gianni Infantino to resign as FIFA president, saying trust in his leadership is gone for good. The move, backed by a fresh ethics complaint bundling together his abandoned investment plan, the Trump peace prize and the Balogun suspension reversal, marks the sharpest escalation yet in a crisis engulfing the body overseeing Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup.
Norwegian Football Federation president Lise Klaveness called on Gianni Infantino to resign as FIFA president on Friday, telling The Guardian that trust in his leadership no longer exists and that there is no way back for him. The call, made after the Norwegian federation’s board met on Thursday, is the first public resignation demand from a national football association since Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup collapsed a week earlier. Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported that the federation will also file a fresh complaint with FIFA’s ethics committee covering the abandoned investment plan, the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to President Trump, and the reversal of a suspension involving USA player Folarin Balogun, three separate episodes that have each drawn criticism of Infantino’s leadership over the past year, at a time when Infantino also faces scrutiny over the body’s role in overseeing Saudi Arabia’s preparations to host the 2034 World Cup.
“There Is No Trust In Infantino Now”
Klaveness told The Guardian that the Norwegian federation had decided there is no trust in Infantino now, adding that concerns about his leadership had deepened consistently, with what she described as one more worrying step in every part of every year. She said the trust was now gone entirely and there was no way back for him. Separately, addressing reporters directly, Klaveness said Infantino does not have the institutional trust required to lead FIFA in a stable manner in the current climate, and confirmed the federation’s position that there is no turning back for him.
A Formal Ethics Complaint Ties Three Controversies Together
NRK reported that the Norwegian federation intends to file a new complaint with FIFA’s ethics committee that will bundle together the collapsed FIFA Forward Enterprise investment plan, the FIFA Peace Prize presented to President Trump, and Infantino’s intervention in suspending Folarin Balogun’s disciplinary ban after a phone call from Trump during this year’s World Cup. Klaveness said the federation had reached a point where extraordinary measures were needed to create lasting change inside the organisation, framing the complaint as a structural response rather than a reaction to any single incident.
A Long History Of Warnings From Norway
Klaveness’s resignation call is the culmination of years of documented criticism from Norway’s federation, which has positioned itself as one of FIFA’s most persistent internal critics under her leadership since 2022. She previously condemned Infantino’s address on the eve of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, in which he said he identified with Qatari, Arab, African, gay, disabled and migrant worker identities to argue that criticism of Qatar’s human rights record amounted to hypocrisy, saying at the time that Infantino’s rhetoric echoed language used by dangerous state leaders. She was also among the federation presidents who criticised Infantino’s late arrival at FIFA’s Congress in Paraguay after a trip to the Middle East to meet Trump, and had separately objected to the accelerated, uncontested process that confirmed Saudi Arabia as 2034 host in 2024.
UEFA’s Boycott Threat Remains In Place
Reuters reported that UEFA confirmed on Thursday its threat to boycott the World Cup and other FIFA competitions still stands, despite FIFA having abandoned and formally apologised for the investment plan. That confirmation indicates the crisis has not meaningfully de-escalated even after Infantino’s climbdown and apology at a meeting in Rabat earlier in the week, where FIFA said it had apologised to its members for mistakes made during the episode.
Not Every Federation Has Turned Against Infantino
Reuters reported that opposition to Infantino remains far from universal. Mexico’s football federation issued a statement saying it would neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside FIFA’s institutional framework, explicitly voicing support for Infantino’s leadership and his stated commitment to developing football for the benefit of all 211 member associations. Argentina’s federation was separately reported to be backing Infantino, alongside a small number of other national associations that have continued to support him even as UEFA, CONCACAF, the Asian Football Confederation and now Norway have turned against him.
A Presidency Increasingly Defined By Close Political Ties
Independent commentary on Klaveness’s campaign to reform FIFA has drawn a direct line between the current crisis and Infantino’s broader pattern of political relationships during his decade in charge, noting his close ties during his tenure with Vladimir Putin, the rulers of Qatar, and more recently Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia, which is investing heavily in FIFA and will host the 2034 World Cup following what has been described as an opaque bidding process. That framing situates the current resignation calls not as an isolated reaction to one failed investment plan, but as the culmination of a pattern of governance concerns stretching back through Qatar 2022 and into the Saudi 2034 hosting decision itself.
Why This Matters For Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup
Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the 2034 World Cup depends on FIFA’s continued institutional stability over the next eight years. A national federation with as strong and consistent a track record of governance criticism as Norway’s calling directly for the resignation of the man who has led FIFA throughout the entire Saudi bidding and hosting process is a significant marker, not simply because of the resignation call itself, but because of the specific episodes the federation’s forthcoming ethics complaint plans to bundle together. Each of those episodes, the investment plan, the Trump peace prize, and the Balogun suspension reversal, reflects the same underlying concern human rights organisations and legal complainants have already raised about the Saudi 2034 bid: a FIFA leadership willing to make major decisions with limited transparency and, critics argue, in ways that serve powerful individual relationships over institutional accountability.
A Test Of Whether Reform Follows Resignation Calls
Klaveness said Norway would pursue Infantino’s resignation through direct engagement with FIFA rather than by requesting an extraordinary UEFA board meeting, leaving open whether other national federations will follow Norway’s lead in the coming weeks. With candidates required to declare their intention to stand in March’s presidential election by 18 November, Norway’s intervention adds real pressure to a contest that, until this month’s crisis, had looked like a formality in Infantino’s favour.
Broader Debate Over Accountability And Sportswashing
Norway’s resignation call, and its forthcoming ethics complaint linking three of the most controversial episodes of Infantino’s presidency, represents the clearest institutional challenge yet to FIFA’s leadership from within its own membership. Neither FIFA nor Infantino has issued a direct response to Klaveness’s comments. For rights organisations, federations and fans who have spent years questioning the transparency of FIFA’s decision-making, including its handling of Saudi Arabia’s 2034 hosting rights, Norway’s intervention is likely to be read as confirmation that those concerns are no longer confined to outside critics, but now sit at the centre of a genuine contest over who leads world football into the 2034 tournament.