Norway Football Federation Lise Klaveness Has Long Been a Critic of Infantino

Norway calls for Fifa president Gianni Infantino to resign following his aborted attempt to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors. Norway Football Federation Lise Klaveness has long been a critic of Infantino. Norway have called on Fifa president Gianni Infantino to resign following his aborted attempt to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors, but Mexico and Argentina have voiced their support for the 56-year-old.

Norway have gone a step further than the football associations of England, Wales, Croatia and Albania, all of whom have withdrawn support for Infantino without explicitly calling for him to resign. "He [Infantino] does not have the institutional trust required to govern Fifa stably in the times we are in, Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) president Lise Klaveness said on Friday. "There is no going back for Gianni Infantino.

The international football cooperation is very much in trouble, and we must have a reason to get together now, and we want to ask the Fifa president to resign now. Klaveness, who is a qualified lawyer, went through a list of concerns that the Norwegian FA has expressed to Fifa during her four-year tenure. Among them were questions around the awarding of tournaments, the inaugural Fifa peace prize that was awarded to US President Donald Trump in December, and the overturning of a ban for American forward Folarin Balogun during the recent World Cup following a phone call from Trump.

Meanwhile, earlier on Friday the Mexican Football Federation broke ranks with its regional governing body Concacaf to come out in support of Infantino. Concacaf, which runs football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, called for a "comprehensive reckoning" of Infantino's presidency after he aborted plans to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors. However, 2026 World Cup co-hosts Mexico have backed Infantino's leadership amid widespread calls for him to resign.

"The FMF [Mexican FA] supports president Infantino's leadership in continuing to promote the development of football through institutional strengthening, a statement read. It echoed a statement from Conmebol - South America's governing body - in saying it would reject any attempt to remove Infantino without a vote involving all 211 Fifa members. "The FMF will neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside of that institutional framework, and it joins the call made by president Infantino to collectively continue developing football for the benefit of the 211 member associations, it added.

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However, Conmebol did "express its concern about the repeated unilateral actions taken without resorting to dialogue or the institutional mechanisms provided for dealing with this type of situation". Meanwhile, the football association of 2026 World Cup runners-up Argentina praised Infantino for recognising and apologising for his "errors". It described his decade-long tenure as Fifa president as "centred on the development of soccer worldwide and institutional strength based on a clear, stable, and transparent governance model".

Infantino is unanimously backed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), but faces opposition from European football's governing Uefa and Concacaf. European teams could still boycott the World Cup as Uefa said its conditions had not been met, despite Infantino's plan being aborted. Assurances have to be made that such attempts to disfigure the game in this way will never be made again, a Uefa statement read.