5JUN

FIFA drops cleared Dutch VAR official

2 min read

08:45UTC

FIFA removed Dutch video-assistant referee Rob Dieperink from its World Cup officials list after London's Metropolitan Police dropped the case against him for insufficient evidence, replacing him with France's Willy Delajod.

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Key takeaway

Police cleared Dieperink; FIFA removed him anyway, applying a standard the criminal courts did not.

FIFA removed Dutch video-assistant referee Rob Dieperink from its World Cup officials list and replaced him with France's Willy Delajod ¹. Dieperink was arrested in London on 9 April on suspicion of sexual assault against a 17-year-old; London's Metropolitan Police dropped the case on 15 May, finding the evidential threshold had not been met, and took no further action.

Dieperink was cleared. He says he cooperated fully and called the decision disappointing. Reporting his removal carries no implication the allegation was true; the police found it could not be sustained. What is on the record is that FIFA ended the appointment of an official the courts never charged.

The contrast runs against FIFA's own president. Six months after Gianni Infantino awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize to Donald Trump, documented by Human Rights Watch in its April audit , no equivalent ethics action has been taken against him. The same conduct machinery that moved against Dieperink within weeks of a dropped case has stayed dormant on the president, now backed into view by Norway's federation.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Rob Dieperink is a Dutch video-assistant referee (VAR): the official in a review booth who watches replays and tells the on-pitch referee whether to review a decision. He was arrested in London in April 2026 on suspicion of sexual assault against a 17-year-old. The Metropolitan Police looked at the evidence and decided there was not enough to charge him; they closed the case on 15 May. Despite that clearance, FIFA removed Dieperink from its list of World Cup officials and replaced him with a French referee. FIFA's rules allow it to remove someone on conduct grounds even without a criminal conviction. The controversy is that FIFA acted swiftly against a cleared lower-ranking official while a separate ethics complaint (about FIFA president Gianni Infantino giving a political award to Donald Trump) has sat unresolved for six months.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Under Article 23 of the FIFA Code of Ethics, the body can impose provisional measures including removal from appointments for conduct unbecoming before any disciplinary proceeding concludes. A police finding of 'insufficient evidence' establishes that the criminal threshold was not met; it does not establish that no conduct issue exists under FIFA's own regulations.

The asymmetry with the Infantino ethics file is structural rather than exceptional: the Infantino complaint is a peer complaint from a member organisation, not a criminal allegation, and the Ethics Committee has different procedural timelines for each type. Dieperink's case was operationally straightforward; removing a non-essential roster official is simpler than acting against the body's most senior figure during a $13.1bn event.

What could happen next?

Precedent
FIFA's removal of a cleared official establishes that reputational risk is sufficient grounds for roster exclusion, even when the criminal threshold is not met.
Risk
The asymmetric treatment of Dieperink versus the Infantino file gives FairSquare and Norway additional evidence of selective enforcement for their post-tournament complaint resubmission.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: The 2015 FIFA governance crisis, when Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were suspended pending ethics investigations, demonstrated FIFA's willingness to act on conduct grounds before any criminal proceeding concluded. Both officials faced provisional suspensions under Article 23 of the FIFA Ethics Code, not criminal charges. Blatter's suspension came three days after he announced resignation; criminal proceedings in Switzerland ran for years afterwards.

Counter-parallel: The Court of Arbitration for Sport's reinstatement of Platini in 2016 following a partial CAS appeal illustrates the reverse: a FIFA disciplinary action reversed by external arbitration. Dieperink has not appealed to CAS; the clearance came from police, not from FIFA's own ethics process.

Consensus view: Mark James, professor of sports law at Manchester Metropolitan University, has written that football governing bodies routinely apply reputational conduct standards above the criminal threshold, citing the NFL's personal conduct policy as the international template; FIFA's ethics regulations allow removal on conduct grounds without a conviction.

Counter-view: Paul Thorogood, former chief executive of the British Olympic Association, argued in the context of doping that the 'presumption of innocence in a sporting context cannot be inverted simply because media coverage makes presence uncomfortable'; a cleared official's removal on reputational grounds sets a chilling precedent for referees facing unproven allegations.

Key tension: Whether FIFA's conduct standard permits removal after a police clearance; where 'insufficient evidence' is not the same as innocence; or whether the ethics regulations require a higher threshold before an official's appointment can be terminated.

Sources:NL Times / The Athletic·NL Times / The Athletic

Mentions:FIFA →Court of Arbitration for Sport →World Cup →Switzerland →London →Donald Trump →Gianni Infantino →Norway →Human Rights Watch →France →Metropolitan Police →FIFA Peace Prize →VAR →

First Reported In

Update #14 · Iran flies on a visa it doesn't have

NL Times / The Athletic· 5 Jun 2026

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