Gianni Infantino

Infantino confirmed Trump would jointly present the World Cup trophy, then crossed the stage himself on 19 July 2026 to move Trump aside when he lingered as Spain's players tried to lift it; a pool reporter measured booing at 84 decibels against roughly 78 ambient. The scene capped a tournament in which FIFA's Appeal Committee had suspended Folarin Balogun's red-card ban within a day of a reported 6 July phone call from Trump lobbying Infantino, while Themba Zwane's three-match ban stood unexplained nine days earlier.

Seventy-two members of the European Parliament wrote to all 27 European football associations on 14 July calling for an investigation into the Balogun reversal, widening pressure on Infantino from football's institutions into elected politics.

FairSquare filed a formal ethics complaint against Infantino on 8 December 2025, alleging four breaches of FIFA's political neutrality rules over his public alignment with Trump, including awarding him the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. The Norwegian Football Federation became the first member federation to back it on 2 June 2026, before FairSquare referred Infantino to the IOC's Ethics Commission on 8 July after seven months of FIFA silence.

The IOC rejected the referral on 24 July 2026, ruling the case fell outside its REMIT rather than weighing the allegations themselves; that leaves Infantino facing the same internal FIFA process that had already gone unanswered for seven months, with no charges laid and no finding of guilt against him.

At the 6 May 2026 Vancouver Congress, Infantino cited 500 million ticket applications to defend FIFA's pricing as market demand, without addressing a 163% rise on comparable seats or an EU Article 102 complaint still without a case number. The New York and New Jersey attorneys general subpoenaed FIFA on 27 May over MetLife Stadium ticketing, alleging undisclosed premium tiers had driven price rises of roughly 25% across more than 90 matches.

Secondary-market prices fell 37% in the final week before the opener, and the European Commission confirmed receipt of its own Article 102 complaint on 28 May, keeping the pricing question open past the final.