Before World Cup, FIFA slammed for politicising sport with Trump prize

With six weeks to go until the World Cup, FIFA has drawn criticism for politicising football and undermining the sport’s credibility as a force for good.

Norwegian Football Association (NFF) President Lise Klaveness has called on FIFA to scrap its peace prize to avoid getting drawn into politics, suggesting that the awarding of such prizes be left to the Nobel Institute in Oslo.

Led by Gianni Infantino, the sport’s global governing body came under fire for awarding its inaugural peace prize to United States President Donald Trump at the World Cup draw in December.

The FIFA peace award was seen by many as a consolation prize for Trump, who has said on numerous occasions that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and whose country will cohost this year’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico.

“We [the NFF] want to see it [the FIFA peace prize] abolished. We don’t think it’s part of FIFA’s mandate to give such a prize; we think we have a Nobel Institute that does that job independently already,” Klaveness told an online news briefing.

“We think it’s important for football federations, confederations and also FIFA to try to avoid situations where this arm’s-length distance to state leaders is challenged, and these prizes will typically be very political if you don’t have really good instruments and experience to make them independent, with juries and criteria et cetera.

“That is full-time work; it’s so sensitive. I think from a resource angle, from a mandate angle, but most importantly from a governance angle, I think it should be avoided also in the future,” she said.

The 45-year-old lawyer said the NFF board would be writing a letter saying it supported calls for an investigation into the awarding of the prize by nonprofit organisation FairSquare, which has alleged that Infantino and FIFA may have breached their own ethical guidelines regarding political impartiality in awarding the prize.

“There should be checks and balances on these issues, and this complaint from FairSquare should be treated with a transparent timeline, and the reasoning and the conclusion should be transparent,” Klaveness said.

FIFA did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

‘Mockery of human rights charter’

Meanwhile, Australian footballer Jackson Irvine said football’s credibility as a force for good has been undermined by FIFA, accusing it of making a mockery of its own Human Rights Policy.

Irvine also took aim at FIFA’s decision to give the Peace Prize to US President Trump.

The US launched a military strike on Venezuela a month after the draw and began joint air strikes with Israel on Iran on February 28 .

“As an organisation, you would have to say decisions like the one that we saw awarding this peace prize make a mockery of what they’re trying to do with the human rights charter and trying to use football as a global driving force for good and positive change in the world,” Irvine told the Reuters news agency.