FairSquare’s major October 2024 report Substitute: The Case for the External Reform of FIFA, has prompted a lengthy response from world football’s governing body. 

An email to FairSquare from FIFA’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, sent on 31 October 2024, the day after the publication of Substitute, stated that the report “misunderstood and mischaracterised many aspects of FIFA’s purpose and its organisational and governance structure”. FIFA also said that the 2-week period that FairSquare had given FIFA to respond to our initial findings was “unreasonably short”.

The substantive issues that FIFA said that FairSquare had mischaracterised or misunderstood included the following:

• The “effective sacking” of Mr Miguel Maduro and the election of a new Chairman of the Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee;
• The proposed increment in the number of FIFA’s standing committees from 7 to 35;
• Discussion of the FIFA President’s excessive “executive powers” in the context of decision making by FIFA;
• Concerns with FIFA’s governance failings, which have impacted its ability to prevent abuse and discrimination against women and girls;
• FairSquare’s views on the organisation’s structural unsuitability to lead the emergent women’s game.
• Concerns about the World Cup bidding process that is likely to enable Saudi Arabia to host the men’s 2034 World Cup
• Concerns about the failings in FIFA’s role in relation to protecting human rights.

FairSquare responded on 6 November stating that we would be happy to update the report in response to any further information they could provide that would add critical context to the report’s findings, providing another two weeks for FIFA to do so. 

To date, FIFA has not replied to FairSquare’s letter of 6 November and has given no indication of whether the organisation intends to provide us with more information on the myriad issues addressed in the report, including the central allegation that there is a critical lack of transparency over how member associations have spent FIFA’s development funds distributed under the FIFA Forward Development Programme since 2016.

In relation to one of the points raised by FIFA, FairSquare has made two minor modifications to the report. The report initially stated that the Bureau of the Council was a mechanism that allowed the FIFA President to take decisions unilaterally. In a more precise characterisation, it now explains that the Bureau’s decisions are taken by the FIFA President and its other members – the six presidents of the confederations – either in meetings or “other means of communication”, and that the Bureau enables the FIFA President to circumvent the FIFA Council.

In FairSquare’s initial letter to FIFA of 7 October 2024, we requested details of all Bureau of the Council meetings since 2016 and the minutes of those meetings, and details of all decisions taken by the Bureau of the Council without a meeting having been convened since 2016. FIFA has yet to provide that information or any of the other information we requested.