"dys·​func·​tion·​al: not func­tion­ing prop­er­ly; marked by im­paired or ab­nor­mal func­tion­ing" (Mer­ri­am-Web­ster Dic­tio­nary)

FI­FA is a dys­func­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion. Ex­treme­ly rich but dys­func­tion­al. The glob­al foot­ball au­thor­i­ty is the largest, most pow­er­ful of all in­ter­na­tion­al fed­er­a­tions and in­sti­tu­tions, with 211 mem­bers com­pared to the Unit­ed Na­tions' 193. Where the UN can­not dic­tate com­pli­ance with any of its treaties and res­o­lu­tions to its mem­ber na­tions (un­less the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil au­tho­ris­es the use "all nec­es­sary mea­sures", i.e. force, against an ag­gres­sor coun­try), FI­FA ab­solute­ly dic­tates to gov­ern­ments across the globe, telling them what they can and can­not do, un­der threat of their foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion's sus­pen­sion from the game.

The World Cup is FI­FA’s main mon­ey spin­ner. Next week's tour­na­ment will gen­er­ate USD 14 bil­lion in rev­enue, which will fi­nance the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ac­tiv­i­ty over the next four-year cy­cle (2027-2030). Much of this fi­nance is spread across the globe to mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions via dif­fer­ent pro­grammes, and par­tic­u­lar­ly to the Glob­al South, where FI­FA's bil­lions hold an ir­re­sistible at­trac­tion for ad­ven­tur­ers.

Over the next four years, FI­FA will spend USD 3 bil­lion in foot­ball's "Third World", pro­vid­ing life blood fi­nanc­ing for the ma­jor­i­ty of Glob­al South as­so­ci­a­tions. The de­pen­dence on FI­FA monies is so wide­spread that, at its 2024 Con­gress in Bangkok, Thai­land, FI­FA Pres­i­dent Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no re­port­ed­ly told the gath­ered mem­bers, "70% of you would have no foot­ball with­out the re­sources com­ing from FI­FA." Such mas­sive po­lit­i­cal and fi­nan­cial lever­age is a dan­ger­ous thing.

Un­der FI­FA's Statutes, this awe­some pow­er is con­trolled from the top down by one per­son. FI­FA's pres­i­dent con­trols the des­ti­na­tion of bil­lions of foot­ball dol­lars and the fate of mil­lions of foot­ball peo­ple. He is sup­port­ed in this by a small co­terie of elite ad­min­is­tra­tors drawn from FI­FA's con­fed­er­a­tions - the FI­FA Bu­reau of six Con­fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dents, and the FI­FA Coun­cil (37 per­sons from the Con­fed­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing the pres­i­dents).

Po­lit­i­cal pow­er is man­aged by FI­FA's lead­er­ship via a glob­al sys­tem of pa­tron­age in which mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions are of­fered "sweets and treats" in ex­change for loy­al­ty, or an iron fist if they at­tempt to stray from the FI­FA pres­i­dent's or­tho­doxy. That iron fist is, of course, the threat of the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee, the use of which has been weaponised by the FI­FA Coun­cil and ar­bi­trar­i­ly ap­plied to bring dis­senters to heel.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion has re­cent di­rect ex­pe­ri­ence (2020-2024) of the opaque dic­ta­tor­ship that is the FI­FA Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee. It is a dic­ta­tor­ship be­cause a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee re­sponds on­ly to FI­FA, not to an as­so­ci­a­tion's mem­ber­ship. In No­vem­ber 2019, Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no ar­rived in T&T to sup­port David John-Williams' can­di­da­cy in the TTFA elec­tion to be held a few days lat­er. I had long op­posed John-Williams with a run­ning ef­fort to ex­pose mis­man­age­ment of FI­FA funds pro­vid­ed for the con­struc­tion of the so-called Home of Foot­ball. FI­FA rep­re­sen­ta­tives re­fused to en­ter­tain my ev­i­dence, stat­ing this was "an in­ter­nal TTFA mat­ter" and none of their con­cern. In­fan­ti­no failed and John-Williams was re­moved.

The new TTFA ad­min­is­tra­tion, of which I was a mem­ber, im­me­di­ate­ly stat­ed its in­ten­tion to foren­si­cal­ly in­ves­ti­gate the project's fi­nances, on­ly to find it­self "nor­malised" by FI­FA af­ter three months in of­fice. A de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed lead­er­ship was ar­bi­trar­i­ly re­moved by FI­FA, no process ob­served. The gov­ern­ment of the day sup­port­ed this. The FI­FA of­fi­cial who was re­spon­si­ble for the Home of Foot­ball project land­ed the job of gen­er­al sec­re­tary in a FI­FA con­fed­er­a­tion. And af­ter four years, the "Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee" left hav­ing done lit­tle to re­solve the long­stand­ing prob­lems of TTFA, which still plague our foot­ball on and off the field.

The im­bal­ance be­tween FI­FA's huge fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal pow­er and the rel­a­tive fragili­ty of a large swathe of glob­al foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion has con­se­quences. More­over, in the pur­suit of ever greater rev­enue, FI­FA has aligned it­self with an ar­ray of du­bi­ous, even some ghoul­ish, char­ac­ters across the globe. The de­nial of hu­man rights, sup­pres­sion of po­lit­i­cal dis­sent and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, lack of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, and cor­rup­tion, in­evitably, have flowed from this im­bal­ance and un­holy al­liance. Com­plete dys­func­tion.

FAIRSQUARE

FairSquare is a non-prof­it hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tion, based in the Unit­ed King­dom, that fo­cus­es on pro­mot­ing sys­temic change and ad­vo­cat­ing against hu­man rights abus­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ar­eas of labour mi­gra­tion, po­lit­i­cal re­pres­sion, and trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in Sport.

On De­cem­ber 8, 2025, FairSquare filed a com­plaint with the In­ves­ti­ga­to­ry Cham­ber of FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee ad­dress­ing four in­stances in which In­fan­ti­no vi­o­lat­ed the FI­FA Code of Ethics with his pub­lic sup­port for the ac­tions and poli­cies of the US Pres­i­dent, Don­ald Trump. 

On Tues­day, the Nor­way Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion sent a let­ter to FI­FA in sup­port of the FairSquare com­plaint. This is a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment. I hope oth­er as­so­ci­a­tions will fol­low. Yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), one week be­fore the start of the 2026 men’s World Cup - a tour­na­ment that lays bare FI­FA’s dys­func­tion and the con­se­quences of its deeply flawed gov­er­nance mod­el - FairSquare launched its "Re­boot" cam­paign, which is in­tend­ed to ap­ply ex­ter­nal pres­sure for in­ter­nal re­form on FI­FA.

Sev­er­al months ago, FairSquare ap­proached me to be a mem­ber of the cam­paign's Ad­vi­so­ry Board, which of­fer I read­i­ly ac­cept­ed. I have worked for FI­FA. And I have suf­fered the weight of its heavy hand. Since the scan­dal of 2015, which forced the demise of Sepp Blat­ter, Jack Warn­er and many oth­ers, and led to the coro­na­tion of In­fan­ti­no, FI­FA has failed to ef­fec­tive­ly re­form its in­ter­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion­al process and cul­ture de­spite all promis­es.

Even ear­li­er, in 2014, pri­or to that scan­dal, Michael Gar­cia, the FI­FA ethics in­ves­ti­ga­tor, re­signed due to con­cerns over the han­dling of his cor­rup­tion re­port re­gard­ing the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid­ding process­es. He cit­ed a "lack of lead­er­ship" and lost con­fi­dence in the in­de­pen­dence of the Ethics Com­mit­tee. Gar­cia's res­ig­na­tion raised con­cerns about FI­FA's com­mit­ment to eth­i­cal prac­tice and trans­paren­cy. His de­par­ture high­light­ed the chal­lenges with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­gard­ing cor­rup­tion and gov­er­nance, which tran­scend the Blat­ter-In­fan­ti­no tran­si­tion. Since that time, In­fan­ti­no's "re­forms" have fo­cused on rev­enue ex­pan­sion and con­sol­i­da­tion of pow­er in the hands of the few by dis­trib­ut­ing more mon­ey in­to the hands of an in­creas­ing­ly pli­ant FI­FA mem­ber­ship.

FairSquare has long ar­gued that FI­FA’s struc­tur­al prob­lems can­not be solved from with­in and that ex­ter­nal re­form is es­sen­tial. It be­lieves that key na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and agen­cies - gov­ern­ments, civ­il so­ci­ety, trade unions, po­lit­i­cal blocs like the Eu­ro­pean Union - must pres­sure FI­FA in­to in­ter­nal re­forms that it clear­ly can­not in­sti­tute for it­self. The "Re­boot" cam­paign kicks off by of­fer­ing the glob­al pub­lic the op­por­tu­ni­ty to add their names to an up­dat­ed ethics com­plaint against the FI­FA pres­i­dent for re­peat­ed and se­ri­ous breach­es of FI­FA rules.

FairSquare di­rec­tor Nick McGee­han re­cent­ly said, “Peo­ple are right­ly an­gered and frus­trat­ed by a range of is­sues, from ex­or­bi­tant World Cup tick­et prices to FI­FA’s of­fer­ing of a Peace Prize to a man who then launched an il­le­gal war on a World Cup par­tic­i­pant. This cam­paign is about har­ness­ing that anger and redi­rect­ing it ef­fec­tive­ly to cre­ate the po­lit­i­cal pres­sure re­quired to force mean­ing­ful change at FI­FA.”

In­ter­est­ed read­ers could sup­port this cam­paign on the "re­boot­fi­fa.com" web­site. FairSquare pro­pos­es sev­er­al key "re­boot­ing" changes to FI­FA's op­er­a­tions: 1) ef­fec­tive au­dit­ing of its fi­nan­cial pro­grammes and al­lo­ca­tion of de­vel­op­ment funds to the mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions most in need; 2) sep­a­ra­tion of Its com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions from its reg­u­la­to­ry and gov­er­nance func­tions to elim­i­nate gross con­flicts of in­ter­est; and 3) open, trans­par­ent and ac­count­able re­la­tions with its mem­ber­ship, the foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty, and the me­dia.

The World Cup be­gins next week, and while the ball rolls, we will im­merse our­selves in it. Foot­ball is in­deed one of the opi­ates of the mass­es. Its im­me­di­ate plea­sures dull the sens­es to our long-term prob­lems. So good luck to your team. But in­evitably, we must re­turn to re­al­i­ty. I en­cour­age all read­ers to vis­it the "Re­boot" web­site and sign up to the cam­paign.