Norway Demands Infantino Resign as FIFA Splits Along Regional Lines

FIFA's leadership crisis has moved from private grumbling to open confrontation, with Norway now explicitly telling Gianni Infantino to resign while Mexico and Argentina rush to defend him.

The fight traces back to Infantino's plan, first reported roughly two weeks ago, to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors through a commercial subsidiary called the FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA abandoned the plan and apologized to member associations this week after backlash from three continents. That apology did not end the crisis. It escalated it.

Norwegian Football Federation president Lise Klaveness announced Friday, August 7, that her federation had voted Thursday night to demand Infantino step down immediately. "There is no trust in Infantino now," Klaveness told the Guardian, according to the Associated Press. "We have been worried consistently and there has been one more step in worrying direction every year, every part of the year. The trust is now gone for us, there is no way back for Infantino."

Klaveness, a qualified lawyer, laid out a specific list of grievances the Norwegian federation has raised with FIFA over her four-year tenure, according to the BBC. Among them: questions about how tournament hosting rights get awarded, FIFA's decision to award its inaugural peace prize to President Donald Trump in December, and the overturning of a one-match suspension for American forward Folarin Balogun during the recent World Cup after what multiple outlets describe as a phone call from Trump. Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported the federation will file a formal ethics complaint covering all three issues, according to the AP.

Norway's move goes further than England, Wales, Croatia and Albania, all of which withdrew support for Infantino's re-election bid without calling for him to resign outright. UEFA has said its threat to boycott FIFA competitions, including the World Cup, remains on the table despite FIFA scrapping the investor plan. UEFA has stated it has lost confidence in Infantino, according to the BBC.

But football's response is not unified, and the split runs along predictable regional lines. Concacaf, the governing body for North and Central America and the Caribbean, called for a "comprehensive reckoning" of Infantino's presidency and demanded a full governance review, backing UEFA's push for change, according to the Irish Times.

Mexico broke ranks with its own confederation. The Mexican Football Federation issued a statement backing Infantino "in continuing to promote the development of football through institutional strengthening," and said it would "neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside" FIFA's institutional framework, according to the South China Morning Post. That framework points toward the scheduled presidential election in March 2027 as the only legitimate way to change leadership, not a forced resignation.

Argentina followed with what the Irish Times described as a "gushing tribute," praising Infantino's decade running FIFA and crediting him with a "profound transformation" of the organization. South America's confederation, Conmebol, has also lined up behind Infantino, though it did voice concern about what it called Infantino's "repeated unilateral actions," according to the BBC.

The geopolitics here matter. Mexico and the United States co-hosted the 2026 World Cup alongside Canada, giving Mexico's federation direct stakes in staying close to FIFA leadership through the tournament. There is also reported speculation, noted by the Irish Times, that Mexico may want to eventually switch confederations from Concacaf to Conmebol, which would make its alignment with the pro-Infantino South American