Norway’s top soccer official, Lise Klaveness, called for the abolition of the FIFA Peace Prize in a press briefing on Monday, saying that the international sports governing body shouldn’t award world leaders.

“We want to see (the FIFA Peace Prize) abolished,” the Athletic quoted Klaveness as saying to a group of sports journalists. “We don’t think it’s part of FIFA’s mandate to give such a prize. We think we have a Nobel institute that does that job independently already,” she added.

“We think it’s important for football federations, confederations and FIFA to try and avoid situations where this arm’s length distance to state leaders is challenged,” she said, adding that “[t]hese prizes will typically be very political if you don’t have really good instruments and experience to make this independent.”

“To have a jury and criteria is full-time work. It’s so sensitive. From a resource angle and from a mandate angle, but most importantly, from a governance angle, I think it should be avoided also in the future.”

Klaveness has expressed controversial opinions in the past, including suggesting UEFA, the European governing body for soccer, suspend Israel in September 2025.

“Personally, I believe that since Russia is out, Israel should also be out. As a football president you can have personal opinions, and I certainly have mine," Klaveness said to a Norwegian podcast then.

In December 2025, FIFA awarded US President Donald Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, with the stated goal of “reward[ing] individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world.”

The brainchild of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the prize was criticized by many for being overly political and for the choice of Trump as the winner, even without a known nomination process. Some analysts viewed the prize as attempting to placate Trump after he didn’t win a much sought-after Nobel Peace Prize.

Klaveness’s comments came only days before the 2026 FIFA Congress, in which delegates from FIFA’s member countries will meet in Vancouver, Canada, to decide who will host the 2031 FIFA Women's World Cup, among other competitions.