FIFPRO Statement: FIFA Forward Enterprise

FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) is gone. The abuse of power that produced it is not. Governance reforms, not a cover-up, are urgently needed. 

The withdrawal of FFE was inevitable. But withdrawing the proposal does not erase what it revealed.

A plan capable of permanently altering the ownership and governance of the FIFA World Cup, and commercialising the competitions built by generations of players, was conceived in secrecy, negotiated behind closed doors and brought to the brink of agreement before the FIFA Council, the Member Associations, players and football’s recognised stakeholders even knew it existed.

That is not merely a governance failure. It is a profound abuse of presidential power.

Rabat communication merely confirms the problem

We have noted FIFA's internal update from its meeting in Rabat, Morocco with deep concern. Rather than confronting what happened, it reaffirms support for the organisation’s leadership while reducing a fundamental governance and constitutional failure to a matter of "processes and communications" to be "improved".

Most telling is FIFA's own insistence that, despite the "mistakes" it admits, everything was done "in full compliance with the FIFA regulatory framework". If true, that is not a defence. It is an indictment of FIFA’s current governance framework. A framework that allows a project of this magnitude to be developed behind closed doors and hidden from those it affects until it leaks, is a framework that must be reformed, not defended.

We also note FIFA's warning that it "will no longer tolerate any attacks on its integrity". Let us be clear: scrutiny of football’s governance is not an attack. It is the duty of everyone who sustains the game. Any attempt to portray legitimate, good-faith scrutiny as disloyalty will only deepen the concern this episode has caused. And an internal review that reports only to the very Council that was bypassed is no answer at all. Players, their representatives and the professional football stakeholders must be part of it.

No institution can restore confidence in a presidency that has itself dismantled the conditions upon which confidence depends. Trust cannot simply be demanded. Authority cannot merely be asserted. Legitimacy cannot be proclaimed. Each must be earned. Each can be lost.

FIFPRO's demands

The Memorandum of Understanding signed only weeks ago represented a genuine step forward. The FFE episode has demonstrated that, on its own, it is not sufficient to protect players or the game from unilateral exercises of power.  

Regardless of how the present crisis is resolved, football now requires structural safeguards to ensure these events can never be repeated. At a minimum, FIFPRO believes this must include:

• Embedding the Global Social Dialogue Platform as a real, permanent and structural part of FIFA's governance, not a mechanism to be bypassed at will.
• Legally binding engagement with professional football's stakeholders on decisions of major consequence, including the international match calendar, competition expansion and other matters that fundamentally affect the professional game.
• Voting rights for professional football's stakeholders on the FIFA Council, together with a clear and formally recognised role for FIFPRO as the global representative of professional footballers.
• Governance and structural reforms that make it impossible for any individual, ever again, to drive unilateral decisions through the game.

Next steps

FIFPRO has today written to the FIFA administration setting out these demands. The letter explains why this episode represents far more than an isolated governance failure. It concerns the exercise of the highest role and office in world football and the manner in which its authority has been used. The letter has been signed jointly by the FIFPRO President and the Presidents of all FIFPRO regional divisions: FIFPRO Africa, FIFPRO Asia/Oceania, FIFPRO Europe, FIFPRO South America and FIFPRO Central & North America. 

The withdrawal of FFE prevented an irreversible decision. It did not restore the confidence that made such a proposal possible in the first place. That confidence has now been fundamentally broken. It cannot be rebuilt through carefully drafted statements, internal reviews or promises to improve processes. Nor can it be restored simply by announcing governance and structural reforms that should always have existed.

These reforms are now indispensable. But they are the responsibility of the future, not an absolution of the past.

The players did not create this crisis. They will insist that football emerges from it with stronger institutions, stronger safeguards and leadership worthy of the trust the game demands.