The relationship between Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump has entered the realm of political oversight in the United States. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has opened an investigation into the ties between FIFA, the US president, his administration and his family businesses. The congressman has asked Infantino to sit for a transcribed interview and provide the requested documents on 9 August.
The request covers any gift, payment, award, public appearance or benefit provided to Trump, his relatives, members of his administration or entities linked to the Trump Organization. Raskin is also seeking the lease for the office FIFA opened on the 17th floor of Trump Tower, communications held with US officials since 2024, information about World Cup ticket sales and visitor logs for FIFA’s offices in New York and Miami. The letter even orders the preservation of messages sent through Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, X or Truth Social.
Trump Tower and the FIFA Peace Prize
The investigation is based on a possible quid pro quo that Raskin has yet to prove. FIFA officially opened a representative office in Trump Tower in July 2025, during an event led by Infantino, Eric Trump and Ronaldo Nazário. According to the letter, the space could cost around $600,000 a year, even though its main use was linked to the World Cup’s 39 days of competition.
The second gesture was the creation of the FIFA Peace Prize, which was awarded to Trump for the first time during the World Cup draw in Washington. Infantino said at the time that the US president could always count on his support and that of the football community. Raskin believes that the office lease and the new award may have been intended to secure favourable treatment from the administration, although the letter does not currently provide direct evidence of such an exchange.
The congressman links these decisions to the outcome of several cases stemming from the corruption scandal that shook FIFA in 2015. That US investigation targeted more than two dozen officials and executives and documented more than $200 million in bribes and kickbacks over 24 years. The Trump administration ultimately supported the overturning of convictions and the dismissal of charges in one of the cases, prompting Raskin to ask whether FIFA had any contact with the Department of Justice regarding those proceedings. The withdrawal of the cases is established; the connection with Infantino’s gestures towards Trump forms part of the Democrat’s political hypothesis.
Ticketing and the Balogun case widen the dispute
FIFA’s ticketing policy has added an economic dimension to the investigation. The North American bid had presented a maximum price of $1,550 for the final, while some tickets were eventually offered for close to $33,000. Raskin also questions the use of dynamic pricing, the possible creation of artificial scarcity and FIFA’s ability to later move buyers to worse seats. The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have already issued subpoenas to the organisation to investigate whether fans received misleading information about seats and prices.
Trump’s intervention in the Folarin Balogun case brought the problem onto the pitch itself. The president acknowledged that he called Infantino to request a review of the US striker’s sending-off before the round-of-16 match against Belgium. FIFA upheld the red card but suspended the enforcement of the one-match ban for a year, a decision that allowed Balogun to play and which the organisation attributed to its disciplinary committee. European parliamentarians have called for an investigation, while the Norwegian Football Federation is considering filing a complaint with FIFA’s ethics bodies over a possible breach of political neutrality.
Infantino has responded to the criticism with a 15-part message in which he accuses journalists and detractors of spreading “hate and false rumours” and defends the World Cup as a success. Infantino was booed whenever television cameras showed him inside a stadium. FIFA, however, has still not responded directly to Raskin’s request. The congressman cannot force Infantino to appear on his own because the Democrats do not control the House of Representatives and he would need Republican support. For now, the letter has greater power to expose the relationship between the two men than to compel the production of documents, but it turns all those gestures of closeness between the FIFA president —which have jarred with fans around the world— and Trump into the formal subject of a political investigation.
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