Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A Join Forces to Challenge FIFA’s Governance Structure

Four of Europe's biggest football leagues, the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A, have jointly called on FIFA to overhaul how it is governed, demanding more transparency from world football's governing body.

In a joint statement, the leagues said FIFA needs a new governance structure built around being transparent, objective, proportionate and inclusive. They laid out three main demands: giving stakeholders a genuine say in decision making, ensuring major decisions are backed by evidence, and keeping FIFA's regulatory function separate from its commercial interests.

The statement comes at a difficult time for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who has faced growing scrutiny since this summer's World Cup, particularly over a now abandoned plan to sell stakes in the tournament. That proposal, announced in July, would have seen FIFA set up a commercial subsidiary to manage the rights to its competitions, with private investors able to buy minority stakes. Infantino has since withdrawn the plan, but criticism from across football has continued as he prepares to seek a fourth term as FIFA president at the organisation's Congress in Rabat, Morocco, on March 18 next year.

In their statement, the four leagues wrote: "This must change now for the sake of football. We therefore jointly call for a new governance structure for our sport’s global governing body that is transparent, objective, proportionate and inclusive, built on three core commitments. We call on FIFA to:

"Give affected stakeholders a real role in decision-making: FIFA must establish a permanent body representing key stakeholders, including national associations, leagues, clubs, and players from across men’s and women’s football. This new body must be fully informed about new initiatives and have a meaningful role in FIFA’s decision-making process. The agreement of stakeholder groups directly affected by a decision must be required for decisions concerning, among other matters, the calendar, employment, competitions and football’s core assets.

"Ensure evidence-based decision-making: Any major FIFA proposal must begin with a clearly defined rationale, supporting evidence and an independent assessment, published in advance of any decision, covering players, clubs, leagues and supporters, and evaluating the impact on all stakeholders and the development of football. A range of options should be scrutinised and final decisions should be accompanied by published explanations.

"Protect FIFA’s regulatory role from its commercial function: FIFA’s role as regulator and guardian of the game must be protected from its commercial function, as a global competition organiser, by robust institutional safeguards to preserve trust, legitimacy and accountability. The ethics, financial oversight and electoral bodies must have appointments, budgets and powers that are genuinely independent of the FIFA administration and of the presidency. These reforms will ensure that FIFA’s core competition rights, including the World Cup, are held in trust for all of football.

"Moving Forward: At this crucial time for our sport, we encourage candidates for the FIFA presidency to endorse these principles and, within the first 100 days of the next presidential mandate, to convene an independently chaired Governance Convention representing member associations and the wider football community, mandated to report publicly within six months. All candidates for the FIFA presidency should publish their own reform programme, debate its contents and adhere to fair election rules. FIFA’s financial, legal, communications and marketing resources, as well as its football development funds, must remain strictly neutral and never create an electoral advantage for any candidate.

"We invite confederations, national associations, leagues, clubs, player unions, supporter groups and public authorities from every continent to join this cause by supporting these principles. Now is the moment to decide not only who will lead FIFA, but also how FIFA should be led. Leagues have a crucial role to play in this process, and we want to ensure that the voice of every league is heard. Football needs FIFA to be a strong institution. But strength must be matched by accountability. FIFA’s authority can only come from sharing responsibility, accepting scrutiny and earning trust."

This latest pressure follows UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin's call last week for a full review of FIFA's finances, in which he urged the governing body to share some of its £4.5 billion in cash reserves. In a strongly worded letter to Infantino, Ceferin suggested FIFA distribute around £7.5 million to each of its 211 member associations.

Ceferin argued that FIFA's financial resources belong to the wider game rather than the organisation itself. 

"FIFA must of course remain financially strong, meet its existing commitments and maintain an appropriate buffer, and our analysis takes full account of that," he said. "But FIFA currently holds billions of dollars in accumulated reserves. These resources belong to football and exist to serve the game and its 211 MAs. Prudence should not prevent a careful examination of whether a portion could responsibly be released to the extent those reserves exceed FIFA's foreseeable needs."