Infantino and Trump have formed a close bond in recent years, with the US one of the co-hosts for next year’s men\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
Infantino even presented Trump with the inaugural Fifa peace prize at last Friday\u2019s World Cup draw in Washington DC.<\/p>\n
FairSquare, a group which seeks to promote greater accountability in sport, has written a letter of complaint to Fifa\u2019s ethics committee alleging comments made by Infantino about Trump – and the process followed to award him with the peace prize – were in breach of Fifa rules.<\/p>\n
In October, Infantino used his Instagram account to say Trump \u201cdefinitely deserves\u201d the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
After a video about Trump was played out at the draw prior to him receiving the Fifa peace prize, Infantino remarked: \u201cThis is what we want from a leader… you definitely deserve the first Fifa Peace Prize for your action for what you have obtained in your way but you obtained it in an incredible way and you can always count, Mr President, on my support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Infantino said in a November interview at the American Business Forum in Miami that \u201cwe should all support what (Trump) is doing (in the US) because I think it\u2019s looking pretty good\u201d.<\/p>\n
FairSquare\u2019s letter, first reported by The Athletic, also referenced an Instagram post from Infantino on January 20, the day of Trump\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world,\u201d Infantino said at the conclusion of a video message.<\/p>\n
FairSquare also called on the Fifa ethics committee to investigate how Trump came to be awarded the Fifa peace prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe award of a prize of this nature to a sitting political leader is in and of itself a clear breach of Fifa\u2019s duty of neutrality,\u201d FairSquare\u2019s letter stated.<\/p>\n
FairSquare said that based on Fifa\u2019s own statutes, the decision to introduce such a prize should have been taken by the Fifa Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fifa president does not have the authority to unilaterally dictate the organisation\u2019s mission, strategic direction, policies and values,\u201d the letter added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis complaint is about a lot more than Infantino\u2019s support for President Donald Trump\u2019s political agenda,\u201d said Nicholas McGeehan, FairSquare\u2019s programme director.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore broadly this is about how Fifa\u2019s absurd governance structure has allowed Gianni Infantino to openly flout the organisation’s rules and act in ways that are both dangerous and directly contrary to the interests of the world’s most popular sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifa has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Infantino and Trump have formed a close bond in recent years, with the US one of the co-hosts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[969,2956,61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-183572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-fifa","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}