The International Olympic Committee has refused to investigate FIFA president Gianni Infantino after a human rights group alleged he breached rules on political neutrality through his support for the US president.

FairSquare, a human rights campaign group, filed the complaint with the IOC on July 8, 2026. It argued that Infantino's expressions of support for Donald Trump violated the Olympic Charter's requirement that IOC members remain politically neutral — a rule that bars them from accepting "any mandate or instructions liable to interfere with their freedom of action and vote." Infantino has been an IOC member since 2020 (BBC Sport).

The IOC rejected the complaint on July 24, 2026 (Al Jazeera; The Athletic). Its ethics commission said the complaint referred only to FIFA's internal governance, management, government relations, and implementation of sports rules — matters that fall outside the IOC's code of ethics.

The backdrop to the complaint is tangled. During the World Cup, Trump admitted calling Infantino to ask him to review a red card shown to US striker Folarin Balogun. A red card normally triggers an automatic one-match suspension. After Trump's intervention, Balogun's ban was suspended for 12 months, meaning he could continue playing (BBC Sport).

That decision did not sit well everywhere. The Norwegian Football Federation reacted with what its president, Lise Klaveness, called "strong concern." The NFF is considering a formal complaint to FIFA's own ethics committee about the suspended ban and will decide at its next board meeting. Norway has already filed a separate complaint about FIFA awarding its first Peace Prize to Trump (BBC Sport).

This is not the first time the IOC has declined to act on a complaint involving Infantino. In February 2021, the IOC Executive Board rejected a separate complaint that targeted FIFA, Infantino, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport — the body that resolves sports-related legal disputes. In that instance, the IOC acknowledged that while Infantino himself falls under its code of ethics, the complaint about FIFA's conduct did not (Olympics.com).

For football fans, the thread that ties these stories together is straightforward: the head of the world's most powerful football body took a phone call from a sitting US president about a refereeing decision, and the sanction that followed was lifted. Whether that chain of events crosses a line is now a matter Norway and FairSquare want formally examined — just not, for now, by the IOC.