FIFA should scrap its peace prize to avoid being drawn into politics, Norwegian Football Association (NFF) president Lise Klaveness said on Monday, suggesting that the awarding of such prizes would be left to the Nobel Institute in Oslo. Under the leadership of Gianni Infantino, world football’s governing body came under fire after awarding the first peace prize to the US. President Donald Trump in December at the draw for the 2026 World Cup.
The FIFA Peace Prize was seen by many as a consolation prize for Trump, who has repeatedly said he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and whose country will co-host this year’s FIFA World Cup with Canada and Mexico.
«We (the NFF) want this (the FIFA Peace Prize) to be abolished. We don’t think it is part of FIFA’s mandate to award such a prize, we think we already have a Nobel Institute that does that work independently,» Klaveness told an online press conference.
“We think it is important that football federations, confederations and also FIFA try to avoid situations where this distance from state leaders is tested, and these awards will usually be ‘very political’ if you don’t have really good tools and experience to make them independent, with juries and criteria and so on.
“That’s full-time work, it’s so sensitive, I think from a resource perspective, from a mandate perspective, but most importantly from a governance perspective I think it should be avoided in the future as well,” she said.
The 45-year-old lawyer said the NFF board would write a letter supporting the call for an investigation into the awarding of the prize by a non-profit organization. Fair Squarewhich has alleged that Infantino and FIFA may have violated their own ethical guidelines regarding political impartiality in awarding the prize.
“There must be checks and balances on these issues and this complaint HonestSquaree must be treated with a transparent timeline, and that the reasoning and conclusion must be transparent,” Klaveness said.
Published on April 27, 2026
