Four major European leagues—the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, and the Bundesliga—have issued a joint statement calling for imperative reforms within FIFA to establish checks and balances on the powers of the FIFA President and prevent future abuses of power.
[Statement Content]
The World Cup may represent the pinnacle of our sport, but football’s foundations are sustained week in, week out, across sold-out stadiums and local communities worldwide by dedicated players, fans, clubs, and leagues.
In recent years, football's long-standing foundations have been threatened by a fundamental governance failure: rather than safeguarding against exploitative ideas, the FIFA President has actively promoted them. Although football stakeholders ultimately forced the withdrawal of the "FIFA Forward" proposal, the underlying conditions that gave rise to it remain firmly in place.
While the FIFA President has now acknowledged the necessity for reform, merely discussing superficial procedural changes in the aftermath of the "Forward" episode is insufficient. Fundamental governance reform is crucial to restoring clear constitutional boundaries within FIFA, including ensuring that individual disciplinary matters are demonstrably free from political interference. The future of FIFA matters to everyone who cares about football, because if its foundations are undermined, our sport cannot grow and flourish globally.
FIFA’s governance crisis extends far beyond the role of any single individual. The broader issue is whether the FIFA President should wield such vast regulatory, commercial, and political powers without effective checks and balances, including the consent of affected stakeholders. More than a decade ago, following criminal proceedings involving senior football officials, FIFA’s own reform process attempted to address these issues; yet, football has once again suffered one of the most egregious abuses of power in FIFA’s history.
We speak with one voice as founding members of European Leagues and the World Leagues Association because we understand how FIFA’s relentless expansionism impacts everyone. Each of us manages a professional ecosystem that connects the grassroots levels of our sport with elite domestic and international competitions. By bringing millions together, domestic football leagues worldwide generate substantial social and economic value: supporting industries, creating employment, investing in grassroots development, and contributing significant tax revenues to our communities.
Approximately one percent of professional players worldwide participate in the FIFA World Cup, while the remaining players and their clubs are halted during domestic league shutdowns. Yet, when FIFA makes major unilateral decisions directly affecting us—such as expanding the International Match Calendar and prolonging the mandatory shutdown periods for domestic competitions—affected stakeholders are denied meaningful involvement in the decision-making process. A FIFA governance model that concentrates unchecked regulatory, commercial, and political power in a single office, while relegating affected stakeholders to a purely consultative role, is anachronistic and outdated.
In recent years, international judicial jurisprudence has consistently reinforced a single principle: sports governing bodies may regulate our game, but their authority is not limitless. When FIFA seeks to organize competitions, it must eliminate inherent conflicts of interest through transparent, objective, non-discriminatory, and proportionate rules and criteria, adopted in an inclusive manner and subject to effective, independent review.
The complaint submitted by leagues to the European Commission in October 2024 regarding the International Match Calendar was a direct consequence of this flawed governance framework. Under this framework, FIFA can leverage its regulatory powers to advance its own commercial objectives without regard for the economic and social sustainability of national competitions, which affect all stakeholders.
For the good of football, this status quo must change now.
Accordingly, we jointly call for a new governance structure for our sport’s global governing body that is transparent, objective, proportionate, and inclusive, anchored by three core commitments. We call on FIFA to:
Grant affected stakeholders a genuine role in decision-making
FIFA must establish a permanent body representing key stakeholders, including national associations, leagues, clubs, and players from both the men's and women's game. This new body must be fully informed of all new initiatives and possess a substantive role in FIFA's decision-making process. For decisions concerning the match calendar, employment conditions, competitions, and football's core assets, the consent of stakeholder groups directly affected by the decision must be obtained.
Ensure evidence-based decision-making
Any major FIFA proposal must first include a clearly defined rationale, supporting evidence, and independent impact assessments published prior to any decision being made—covering players, clubs, leagues, and supporters, and evaluating the ramifications for all stakeholders and football's development. A full spectrum of alternatives should be rigorously scrutinized, and final decisions must be accompanied by publicly disclosed explanations.
Insulate FIFA’s regulatory role from its commercial functions
FIFA's role as the regulator and guardian of the game must be structurally ring-fenced from its commercial operations as an organizer of global competitions through robust institutional safeguards to preserve trust, legitimacy, and accountability. The appointments, budgets, and mandates of the Ethics Committee, financial oversight bodies, and electoral committees must be genuinely independent of FIFA's executive administration and the presidency. These reforms will ensure that FIFA's core competition rights, including the World Cup, are held in trust for the entire football community.
Looking to the Future
At this critical juncture for our sport, we encourage candidates for the FIFA presidency to endorse these principles and, within the first 100 days of the next presidential term, convene a governance convention chaired by independent figures, representing member associations and the broader football community, with a mandate to deliver a public report within six months.
All candidates for the FIFA presidency should publish their reform platforms, debate their merits, and abide by fair electoral regulations. FIFA’s financial, legal, communications, and marketing resources, as well as its football development funds, must remain strictly neutral and never be utilized to confer electoral advantages upon any candidate.
We invite continental confederations, national associations, leagues, clubs, player unions, supporters' groups, and public authorities to join this cause and uphold these principles.
The time has come to decide not merely who leads FIFA, but how FIFA must be led. Leagues play a vital role in this process, and we want to ensure that every league's voice is heard.
Football needs FIFA to be a strong institution. But strength must be matched with accountability. FIFA’s authority can only derive from shared responsibility, subjecting itself to scrutiny, and earning trust.
