A human rights group has filed a formal complaint with the International Olympic Committee alleging FIFA president Gianni Infantino broke the Olympic Charter — and the Folarin Balogun affair sits at the centre of it.
FairSquare's complaint identifies five clear breaches of the IOC's rules on political neutrality, plus prima facie evidence of two further serious violations. The most recent and most eyebrow-raising: the suspension of Balogun's one-match ban, which freed the United States striker to play in their World Cup last-16 match against Belgium — a decision that came shortly after a phone call from Donald Trump to Infantino.
The Balogun decision nobody can explain
FIFA's disciplinary committee chair Mohammad Al Kamali made the call to suspend the ban. According to The Times, he had never been the sole arbiter in any previously published disciplinary case. FIFA has offered no explanation for why the ban was lifted. Infantino insists the committees operate independently. The sequencing of events — Trump calls, ban disappears — makes that claim a difficult one to sell.
Infantino became an IOC member in 2020, which brings with it specific obligations around political neutrality. FairSquare argues he has breached those obligations repeatedly, not just in the Balogun case.
This isn't the first complaint FairSquare has lodged. In December they filed with FIFA's own ethics committee. They received an acknowledgement. Nothing since. The Norwegian football federation followed up last month, urging the committee to act. Then fifty members of the European Parliament wrote on June 29 making the same demand.
The pressure is building, the silence is telling
Three separate bodies pushing FIFA's ethics committee to investigate its own president — and still nothing. That's the detail that matters most here. Whether the IOC moves faster, or at all, is the open question. Their track record on holding powerful sports administrators to account isn't exactly spotless either.
For now, the complaint sits with the IOC. FIFA has given no timeline, no explanation, and no indication it intends to provide either.
