"Are you capable of holding your senior officials to account?" That's the question FairSquare director Nicholas McGeehan is putting directly to FIFA's Ethics Committee — and over 100,000 people have now signed up to back it.
The human rights organisation has filed a second ethics complaint against FIFA president Gianni Infantino, accusing him of abusing his position, breaching political neutrality, and systematically working to "ingratiate himself with U.S. President Donald Trump." The follow-up to a December 2025 filing lands in the wake of a World Cup that generated more controversy off the pitch than on it.
What the complaint actually says
The letter to FIFA's Ethics Committee — seen by Reuters — lists eight specific allegations. Among the most pointed: Infantino publicly endorsed Trump's political agenda and slogan, unilaterally created and awarded a "FIFA Peace Prize" to Trump without FIFA Council approval, and secretly pursued a plan to sell a stake in FIFA events to private equity investors with politically connected backers, bypassing standard governance entirely. That last proposal was eventually scrapped after global backlash.
Then there's the red card incident. During the World Cup, Trump reportedly contacted Infantino directly to request a review of U.S. striker Folarin Balogun's red card. The card was subsequently suspended. Whether that sequence was coincidence or something more uncomfortable is exactly what FairSquare wants investigated.
McGeehan is calling for a two-year ban from football activities. FIFA's Ethics Committee acknowledged the first complaint on December 12 last year and has, per FairSquare, provided zero updates since.
Why this matters beyond the headlines
Infantino is standing for a fourth term as FIFA president in March 2026, with no serious challenger in sight. FairSquare is also separately arguing he's already served the maximum three terms under FIFA's statutes — a claim Infantino neutralised once before in 2022, successfully arguing his first partial term didn't count because it completed an interrupted mandate.
The IOC already dismissed a FairSquare complaint against Infantino in July, saying it fell outside their jurisdiction. FIFA investigating its own president was never going to be straightforward. But 100,000 signatories and a detailed second complaint changes the pressure calculus — even if it doesn't change the outcome.
"This complaint is about a lot more than Infantino," McGeehan told Reuters. "It's about demonstrating to policymakers that the organisation is incapable of regulating itself."
Hard to argue with that framing when the Ethics Committee hasn't responded in nine months.
