Gianni Infantino came to power at Fifa a decade ago, promising to clean up the governing body in the wake of a corruption scandal that toppled the leadership of global football and threatened the organisation’s existence.
But now the Fifa president finds himself embroiled in a row over whether political influence is starting to alter outcomes on the pitch — a new kind of crisis that takes the organisation into uncharted waters.
Critics say the latest episode is symptomatic of deeper problems at Infantino’s Fifa, where they argue decision-making is increasingly designed to further political and commercial goals.
In this case, Folarin Balogun, the US top scorer at the World Cup, was given an automatic one-match ban after being shown a red card in the team’s previous match. However, Fifa abruptly suspended that punishment for a year, a day after a phone call from President Donald Trump, allowing Balogun to play the knockout game against Belgium in Seattle on Monday.
The move is just “one more piece of evidence that Fifa is a system of rules without the rule of law”, said Miguel Maduro, a former ethics chief at Fifa. “Rules are applied unequally . . . appearing to fit the criteria of political and financial interests.” Maduro was hired by Infantino in 2016, but was pushed out less than a year into the job.
Fifa has so far given no explanation for the decision to lift Balogun’s ban, saying only that it was taken by its independent disciplinary committee made up of international football officials and legal experts. Fifa cited Article 27 of its disciplinary code, which grants the committee the power to “fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure”.
But the decision has prompted outrage and complaints of political interference.
Uefa, European football’s governing body, said the decision was “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable”, and had “crossed a red line”. “The integrity of the game is at stake,” it said.
Trump confirmed on Monday that he had asked Infantino to review Balogun’s suspension. “All I did was ask for a review. I didn’t say ‘you have to do this,’” the US president said.
On Monday afternoon Infantino rejected claims of political meddling and said he had explained to Trump during their call that the matter would be resolved by an independent body. Infantino said he would always “respect those decisions and the autonomy of the bodies that make them”.
“Respect for independent institutions and the rule of law is what protects the integrity of our competitions and the credibility of Fifa at all times,” he added.
Belgium’s football federation has pledged to fight the decision.
Simon Leaf, partner at sports-focused law firm Three Points Law, said Fifa’s decision to lift a ban during a tournament was “extraordinary” and “truly unprecedented”.
The regulations “could not be clearer” about the consequences of a red card, he said, adding that Fifa had “allowed one internal rule to override another to suit the host nation’s leading scorer”.
“Fifa must now publish its full written reasoning,” Leaf added. “Without it, no one can properly scrutinise whether Article 27 was lawfully engaged or whether this was simply power dressed up as process.”
Infantino was first elected on a promise to clean up Fifa’s culture, and oversaw a sweeping overhaul of its governance structures in 2017. “The reforms represent an essential step towards the modernisation of Fifa’s institutional culture in key areas such as the clear separation of political and management functions,” Fifa said at the time.
Fifa has not faced allegations of bribery or corruption akin to the 2015 scandals since then. But critics have long complained that the governing body was backsliding on reforms, with power increasingly concentrated in the hands of the president’s office and little transparency about how Fifa makes key decisions.
For example, rules limiting presidential terms, a key part of the 2017 reforms, were significantly weakened in 2022.
In 2023, Fifa’s executive committee announced last-minute changes to the bidding rules for those seeking to host the 2034 World Cup — measures that in effect allowed Saudi Arabia to bid for the competition unopposed.
State-owned oil company Saudi Aramco later became Fifa’s biggest corporate sponsor, while Saudi-backed streamer DAZN bought the TV rights to Fifa’s new Club World Cup tournament for $1bn.
Infantino then faced accusations of abandoning Fifa’s political independence, enshrined in its statutes, when he awarded the inaugural “Fifa peace prize” to Trump at the World Cup draw in Washington in December. The US and Israel launched air strikes against Iran less than three months later.
While Fifa rarely steps in to overturn disciplinary decisions — all other players given red cards so far in this World Cup have served bans — it intervened late last year after Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off during a World Cup qualifier. His three-match ban was lifted after only one game, enabling him to compete in all Portugal’s games at the World Cup being held in the US, Mexico and Canada.
Fifa’s decision in that case came a week after Ronaldo, who plays in the Saudi Pro League, visited the White House as part of a Saudi delegation led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Maduro, the former ethics chief, said the disciplinary committee had lost credibility. It “is not truly independent, and as a consequence, no one trusts that this is an independent and objective decision, but instead a politically motivated one”, he said.
Nicholas McGeehan, director at campaign group FairSquare, said Fifa was now in some ways “more dysfunctional than it’s ever been” but that few in the game have been willing to speak out.
“Fifa’s never had a great reputation. I think a lot of people involved in it just take that as par for the course,” he said. “You cross the Rubicon when you start to mess with the game in such an obvious manner.”
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