NGOs, academics, writers, whistleblowers and football supporters’ groups are among those who today condemned serious ongoing misgovernance at football’s world governing body FIFA in a joint statement published on the ten year anniversary of the notorious arrests of senior FIFA officials in Switzerland.
The arrests at the Baur Au Lac hotel in Zurich on 27 May 2015, and the US Department of Justice prosecutions that followed, prompted a series of internal reforms at football’s global governing body. The joint statement argues that these reforms “failed to usher in a new era of responsible governance at FIFA”, and that the organisation is “arguably more poorly governed today than it was 10 years ago.” It largely attributes the failure of the reform process to the existence of a “model of patronage” within FIFA, which “disincentivises ethical conduct and precludes effective internal reform”, and describes the most serious consequences of this, both on and off the pitch.
Signatories of the joint statement include: esteemed academics from South Africa, Brazil, the United States, India and the UK, whose research has identified the most critical problems with FIFA’s governance model; lawyers from Switzerland, where FIFA is headquartered; FairSquare and Fair Game, which are promoting fairer and better governance in football; and NGOs addressing a diverse range of issues impacted by FIFA’s operations, from tax justice to the climate crisis to human rights in Saudi Arabia.
“This statement demonstrates not only the rank failure of the reforms enacted under the presidency of Gianni Infantino, but also the breadth of expert opposition to and frustration with FIFA’s dysfunctional governance model”, said Nick McGeehan, the co-director of FairSquare, which coordinated the joint statement.
“I was on the inside during the Blatter era, where wrongdoing was out in the open and the need for reform was not understood and certainly not welcome”, said signatory Bonita Mersiades, who blew the whistle on FIFA misconduct after working on Australia’s bid for the 2018 and 2022 men’s World Cups. “The 2015 raids were a reckoning. But ten years on, while there may be process and policy in place under Gianni Infantino, the culture remains the same. And when it comes to process versus culture, culture wins every time. True reform demands more than new systems—it requires new values. We’re not there yet.”
“The leadership of FIFA has zero credibility. It has no intention of addressing the serious structural flaws in the organisation, and continues to make choices that are obviously not in the best interests of the game. Reform is desperately needed”, said Anders Kjellevold, chairman of football supporters’ group Norsk Supporterallianse in Norway, one of nine organisations that added their name to the joint statement.
FairSquare provided FIFA with a full copy of the statement in advance of publication and offered them the opportunity to comment.
In October 2024, FairSquare published “Substitute: The case for the external reform of FIFA”, which contains many of the same arguments and allegations in today’s statement. FIFA’s response to that report can be seen here.
