The Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga have joined forces to demand urgent governance reform at Fifa, declaring that the world governing body is “not fit for purpose” and taking aim at the “exploitative ideas” they say its president has promoted.
The four biggest European leagues issued a strongly worded joint statement characterising the problem as structural rather than procedural. “Football’s longstanding foundations have, in recent years, been threatened by a fundamental governance problem, whereby Fifa’s president has actively promoted exploitative ideas rather than safeguarding against them,” they said. “And while football’s stakeholders ultimately forced the withdrawal of the Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, the conditions that led to FFE remain.”
Fifa Forward Enterprise was the commercial vehicle through which Gianni Infantino planned to accept private investment to run Fifa’s tournaments, a proposal that emerged on 28 July and was abandoned after opposition from stakeholders. The four leagues argue that its withdrawal did not address the underlying issues. “The Fifa president has now acknowledged the need for reform, but it is not enough for surface-level, process changes to be explored in the aftermath of FFE,” their statement continued. “Fundamental governance reform is essential to restore clear constitutional boundaries within Fifa, including confidence that individual disciplinary matters remain demonstrably insulated from political interference.”
That reference to disciplinary matters points to the Folarin Balogun affair, which the leagues used to underline their demand for stronger checks and balances. Their central complaint is captured in their own assessment of the current structure: “A Fifa governance that concentrates unchecked regulatory, commercial and political power in a single office, while relegating affected stakeholders to mere advisory status, is not fit for purpose.”
The leagues want the next Fifa president to endorse three specific changes. The first is the creation of a permanent decision-making body inside Fifa that includes representatives of national associations, leagues, clubs and players. The second is a commitment to publish the reasoning behind major decisions in advance. The third is the separation of Fifa’s regulatory functions from its commercial operations.
Beyond those structural demands, the four leagues called on all presidential candidates to publish their own reform programmes, debate their contents and adhere to fair election rules. They want the next mandate to open with an independently chaired governance convention representing member associations and the wider football community, convened within the first 100 days and mandated to report publicly within six months. Fifa’s financial, legal, communications and marketing resources, along with its football development funds, must, they said, remain strictly neutral and never create an electoral advantage for any candidate.
The intervention comes at a moment of prolonged friction between Europe’s leading leagues and Fifa, much of it centred on an increasingly congested match calendar that has been worsened by the addition of new competitions such as the Club World Cup. Two years ago the lobby group European Leagues filed a legal complaint with the European Commission accusing Fifa of abusive practices, a complaint that has since been extended to cover the women’s game.
Infantino is preparing to seek a fourth term as president, and his willingness to commission an external governance review had already been portrayed as falling short of what critics want, with several Fifa Council members reportedly rejecting that proposal. He said this week that he had “never been more determined and committed” to doing “what is right for the game”.
The deadline for candidates to declare their intention to stand is 18 November, ahead of the election in March. Infantino is the only declared candidate so far, and there are growing concerns within European football that he will end up being re-elected unopposed.