Norwegian Football Federation Demands FIFA President Infantino’s Immediate Resignation Over World Cup Revenue Controversy

The Norwegian Football Federation has become the first to publicly call for FIFA President Gianni Infantino to resign immediately amid a crisis over his attempt to sell a portion of World Cup revenues to private investors. The decision was made during the federation’s board meeting on Thursday night. Lisa Klaveness, the federation’s president, who has previously criticized Israel and called for its suspension from UEFA, stated that Norway has lost all trust in FIFA’s leadership under Infantino. "We have decided there is no more trust in Infantino," Klaveness said, adding that the current situation has created global division and chaos in football.

Norway plans to send a formal letter demanding Infantino’s resignation in the coming days. The country was among the few that did not support Infantino’s re-election last year and is now urging him to step down ahead of the upcoming March elections. Klaveness expressed disappointment that Infantino failed to implement promised reforms since taking office in 2016 following FIFA’s major corruption scandal.

Additionally, the Norwegian federation is calling for a full review of reforms introduced under Infantino and intends to file a new ethics complaint concerning three issues: the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) program, the awarding of FIFA’s Peace Prize to Donald Trump, and the Polarion Balogun incident at the last World Cup. Norway is particularly concerned about the timing of the FFE initiative, which offered significant financial gains to federations shortly before FIFA’s presidential elections, raising potential abuse of office questions.

Klaveness also demanded greater transparency from FIFA’s Ethics Committee, criticizing current oversight mechanisms as ineffective. Meanwhile, UEFA member federations continue to support the possibility of boycotting FIFA competitions, despite Infantino scrapping the FFE plan. The first affected tournament could be the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland starting September 5. Klaveness expressed hope the crisis would be resolved before then but emphasized that Infantino’s resignation is necessary to stabilize the situation.