 "FIFA accused of violating its own rules with Peace Prize to Donald Trump: 'Clear breach of neutrality'")
A complaint has been filed with the ethics committee of FIFA over the recent crowning of the United States President Donald Trump with the body’s newly introduced Peace Prize. A London based human rights organisation named FairSquare has accused the president of FIFA Gianni Infantino of violating his own principles.
Infantino awarded Trump with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize on December 6 during the draw ceremony for the upcoming World Cup. Infantino had previously also rallied for Trump in the American president’s unsuccessful bid for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fairsquare has filed its complaint over FIFA’s honour to Trump and said that the award breached world’s football governing body’s four rules.
Infantino ‘committed four clear breaches’
“The award of a prize of this nature to a sitting political leader is in and of itself a clear breach of FIFA’s duty of neutrality,” FairSquare said in its complaint.
“The FIFA president does not have the authority to unilaterally dictate the organisation’s mission, strategic direction, policies and values.”
The ethics committee has also been asked to probe Infantino’s role in the “processes that led to the creation of the FIFA Peace Prize”. The decision to award the prize to Trump has also been put under scanner.
“This complaint is about a lot more than Infantino’s support for President Donald Trump’s political agenda,” FairSquare’s programme director Nicholas McGeehan was quoted as saying by AFP.
“More broadly this is about how FIFA’s 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.”
Infantino’s ties with Trump have attracted a lot of attention in the run up to the World Cup with allegations of breaching neutrality of the body consistently being labelled upon the FIFA head.
The disproportionate scheduling of games in the United States and the NFL-style break-up of the game into four quarters due to the mandatory drinks break have also attracted criticism.
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