Lise Klaveness was calling out Gianni Infantino before it was fashionable.
The president of Norway’s football federation has long been a thorn in the side of FIFA’s president, pressing loudly for more transparent governance at the top of world football. Her concerns, which date back to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the questions it raised over migrant labour and human rights, found a far wider audience this summer after Infantino’s secret plan to sell off parts of the tournament exposed the risks of FIFA’s highly centralised leadership.
The 45-year-old former international player, lawyer and judge recently told POLITICO that Infantino must go and that the system he built should be completely rebuilt. Over black coffee at Le Café Lacoste in Monaco’s Méridien Beach Plaza hotel, Klaveness set out five areas where reform should begin, including changes to committees and a reduction in the president’s executive power.
A wave of European countries has now followed Norway in calling for Infantino to leave after his aborted commercial sell-off to private investors, including Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital. Political heavyweights, including British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Premier Mark Carney, have also called for the president to depart.
But Klaveness said she was not bitter about how slowly support had arrived. “I think it’s very bad to be passionate about something and then when it happens you are sort of bitter that it didn’t happen before,” she said.
The conversation took place during UEFA’s season-opening competition draw in Monaco. Just hours after the death of Norway’s King Harald, Klaveness saw her Monaco schedule disrupted as she faced a round of meetings with domestic football officials about postponing the weekend’s fixtures.
She still found time to discuss Russia and Israel’s place in world football, why she feels sorry for FIFA’s staff, and which two men she credits with saving the World Cup from Infantino and Kushner.
The full interview – lightly edited for length and clarity.
Do you believe FIFA’s problems can be solved by removing Gianni Infantino, or has the organisation become incapable of governing football well?
Klaveness: So is it an individual problem or is it a structural problem? Right now it’s both. We are very clear that, first of all, we have over time been very worried about how Gianni Infantino has conducted his leadership, distancing himself more and more from his own reforms. And it started even before power would corrupt. So it seemed like that was his modus operandi, to be elected on one agenda and then rule on another agenda. We desperately need a leader who puts compromises above himself, that puts the sport above himself, that gathers everyone. And we can all see that’s not happening. It’s polarising.
But even if he leaves, we still think it’s also a structural problem, which needs to be fixed. I would not say FIFA is ungovernable. I think good governance is fully possible. But it needs to be a passion, and we all thought it would be after 2015 with the crisis, and that’s why he was elected.
So of course it’s a bit depressing that it didn’t happen, and it’s easy to think that that will just reproduce. The next leader coming in needs to understand that leadership is not just one person — it’s all of us — and we all need to be accountable for these systems.
With all good governance, the process is also part of the aim. The process in itself makes people accountable. So that it’s not a bureaucracy, but it’s necessary to do it and to have a FIFA Congress next year that — regardless of Infantino or anyone else taking over — needs to decide changes to the structures.
Imagine it’s 2031 and FIFA has successfully rebuilt trust. What are three things that are different from today?
Klaveness: We have many committees doing checks and balances today, and those people should be selected more independently. They are officially selected by the Congress, but they are mainly appointed by the president. And the people there should have a proven record for governance — not critical journalists, on one hand, or loyal soldiers to the president on the other. Normal people that have competence with governance. Because if you put those people in such chairs, my experience is that they will not be corrupted.
I guess it’s not popular to say, but we need to reduce the number in the Council to a third, or at least half. When you have a Council of 37 people it is inefficient and then one person will take over. If you have a fully functioning FIFA in five years that has changed.
And, thirdly, you need a good, implemented and checked regulation between the administration and the president. The president should be more non-executive and the general secretary should run the administration and that should be regulated and tested by these committees.
FIFA also very strongly needs to move away from the strategy of growing, growing, growing commercial revenues. So you’re governing the laws of the game, you’re governing the laws of transfers, you are governing the international periods, you’re governing the World Cup, but you’re not first and foremost a business entity.
Klaveness: Yeah, it should actually be more. I would say the fifth thing is that we actually make a review of the reforms Infantino was elected on and implement them. We have to do the analysis, which is now a bit outdated, but I think we went through it in 2015. Then I was following as a nerd, but I liked them and I thought they were good changes.
Do you think football should look outside the football industry for a future leader?
Klaveness: It’s difficult for me to answer that, to be honest. To me, it’s not a yes or no question. I think when we work in football, we all have experienced people from outside football that really lift your organisation, really have a very valuable add to your organisation. We have all experienced the opposite also, that you come in — for example, business people — and underestimate certain parts of football, that it’s not only a product.
But I think we football people have a tendency to say that it should be football people, and people in the organisation — who have come a bit more from outside football — have a tendency to say it should be people coming from outside football. So we all see it from where we are.
And I’m from football, so it would be easy for me to say that is an advantage. I played, but I do not rule out that you can have good leaders [from outside], of course you can. But you need football people in the close team at least. I do think sometimes it’s an advantage to educate players after they’re done and to really make them come back to the game because it is a super power to know how the locker room works.
In light of the Trump-Infantino-Balogun issue that marred the World Cup, what is the red line beyond which political influence becomes unacceptable interference in football?
Klaveness: We have been worried about two particular points with the current leadership for almost five years. We have protocol worries about the lack of implementation of very reasonable reforms and very necessary safeguards toward corruption and conflicts of interest. Secondly, the lack of arm’s-length distance to state leaders. And we have repeated this worry for almost five years — before Trump, with different state leaders.
Many people have told us that it’s pragmatism. We all know that if you organise something, you need to cooperate very well with the state leader, which we should all respect. You cannot expect to have a good World Cup and antagonise any state leader. You need access to airports, you need access to city people. Police should keep the streets open. So it’s a state matter.
But for us, at least, it’s been clear over these four years that this arm’s-length distance is not kept, and then you come into very difficult situations, because politicians and state leaders, if they are not kept at arm’s length, they will ask you for political favours — directly or indirectly — which are not yours to give.
It’s been, in our assessment, political interference with FIFA at an unacceptable level, at least for the four years I’ve been following this. Over time, this political influence, too many wanted to see it as pragmatism but I think in all honesty, we all knew that it went too far.
You have been maybe the clearest voice in football talking about these issues for the last five years. Do you feel any sort of vindication … or exasperation?
Klaveness: First and foremost, I feel very relieved that the UEFA president [Aleksander Čeferin] takes such strong leadership in this, which is not easy; without him the FFE project [to sell off parts of the World Cup] would probably live on.
If UEFA didn’t go so hard against it and [FIFA’s then-Chief Operating Officer, who was fired from the organisation] Kevin Lamour didn’t call it out, I think it would have been very difficult to stop it. So I think we have to thank these two, because you had an administrative guy telling the truth and you had a confederation president going very clearly in one direction. That was a huge relief.
I think it’s very bad to be passionate about something and then when it happens you are sort of bitter that it didn’t happen before. No, it is what it is and I also have to respect that we are a smaller country, I have a membership and a board that expects this from me. We have been equally disturbed by this for four years, and not just me, my whole board. And my congress has asked me for this several times. So, transparency drives behaviour also.
In terms of the current structure of FIFA, do you think the structure is strong enough to resist potential political interference or do you think the structures need to be toughened in 2027?
Klaveness: I think both. I honestly think that it’s easy to say that power corrupts and that goes for everyone — but I’ve met so many people in power that are not corrupted by power. They are decent, concentrated, checked and balanced every day because they also have people around them every day. They hire people that are strong CEOs or general secretaries or advisers. So it is an individual crisis, we have to be honest that he was not what he promised to be, he was a legal officer, he was portraying himself as a governance guy. But when in position — listen to his speeches …
Should we, for example, have external members in the FIFA Council? I would say definitely, but it needs to be thoroughly assessed because it cannot be like whistleblowers. It needs a trusted environment where we all work together. Maybe supervisory board, and maybe external members; definitely a Council culture, where you ask questions every Council meeting. And, not to be rude, but where you also allow — it sounds banal — but where we decide now that in every Council meeting it should be fully OK that we ask questions.
Infantino built a system where that sort of scrutiny is not welcome?
Klaveness: No, and I think that is a general football thing, when you want a leader gone, then you speak; but when you support a leader, then you don’t speak, because then it’s seen as taking a position.
Of course I come from a country where it’s not like that, so it’s easy for me. At all my meetings, people will discuss everything. And also at Congress people go to the stage and maybe a hundred people could come — I’m not exaggerating, it goes for two days — and some of them are really angry at some cases, but I still have their trust, it’s not a personal thing.
What we need to remember is that FIFA does a lot of great stuff — you’ve got to remember this. They have the World Cup now. We work with FIFA, with our team. I was the head of delegation with my team. I was there from June 1 till we went out. And all interaction we have with FIFA on an operational level was excellent, beyond excellent.
But this makes it even worse for all those hundreds of staff who work for FIFA, right?
Klaveness: I feel so bad for them, after the World Cup, honestly. I really want people to know that when we meet them it’s not like arrogant people. They’re really de-escalating, really knowledgeable, really patient and I think really sad for this happening.
They don’t say it necessarily and I don’t put them on the spot, but it’s between the lines that they don’t like it and Kevin Lamour was one of the guys really building bridges. Always interpreting discussions not as opposition but as constructive. He would say, ‘yeah, this is a reasonable thing, I will bring it up, maybe they will not be happy, but then we can have a meeting.’ So those have been good things the last four years, but lack of implementation of reforms and lack of arms-length distance from state leaders, without fail, we will have a crisis.