Football governance: business and values
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly
debate on 26 January 2022 (5th sitting) (see Doc. 15430, report of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education
and Media, rapporteur: Lord George Foulkes). Text
adopted by the Assembly on 26 January 2022 (5th sitting).See
also Recommendation 2221
(2022).
1. The Parliamentary Assembly underlines
the important role played by sport in general and football in particular
in conveying values that are essential for social cohesion and living
together, and in promoting well-being and social advancement. Football
has changed in many ways and it is only natural that it should continue to
do so. It has become a major industry involving huge sums invested
in infrastructure, broadcasting rights, sponsorship, merchandising,
equipment sales, gaming and sports betting, etc. Football’s economic
success, particularly that of European football, is to be welcomed.
Business must not, however, take precedence over values: football
and sport should not be reduced to money-spinning entertainment,
and sports governance should continue to be rooted in promoting
human rights. Upholding such standards must always be the force driving
the major umbrella organisations’ actions, starting with the sporting
events they stage.
2. Countries wishing to host major sports events must be prepared
to assume stringent obligations in various fields and meet them
effectively. For example, their development projects related to
sports events (construction or renewal of sporting, accommodation,
communication and transport infrastructure, etc.) and the planning
of the corresponding investments must comply with the criteria of
economic, social and environmental sustainability. They must also
ensure the safety of all sports equipment and the security of the
national and foreign audience attending the events, and of people
leaving or moving within the areas where they take place. Likewise,
all bidders for major international sport events, such as FIFA (International
Federation of Association Football) and UEFA (Union of European
Football Associations) competitions, must commit in concrete terms to
ensuring compliance with key human rights standards.
3. The Assembly notes that collaboration between host countries,
the relevant international sports federations and human rights organisations
can yield valuable results. This was undoubtedly the case in Qatar. The
Assembly commends the efforts of FIFA, which played a role in getting
the labour law reform process under way in Qatar, and the work of
the International Labour Organization (ILO), the international trade
union movement and non-governmental organisations operating in Qatar.
The Assembly also commends the Qatari authorities for making real
advances in this field. The Assembly cannot, however, express its
full satisfaction, as the situation of workers in Qatar remains
worrying and the number of tragic accidents continues to run into the
hundreds. The reforms need consolidating to ensure that all economic
operators in the country comply with the new rules, and efforts
to solve the issue of unpaid wages and to improve working conditions
for all workers must continue.
4. The Assembly cannot ignore the harsh working conditions experienced
by workers in Qatar since the country was chosen to host the 2022
FIFA World Cup, and the thousands of work-related injuries, including fatal
ones, during this period (although not all of these were related
to World Cup construction sites). Compliance with the ILO’s core
labour standards should be a prerequisite for being a credible candidate
and not a target to reach after being chosen to host the FIFA World
Cup or any another major sporting event.
5. Workers’ rights are not the only rights that need to be taken
into account. The Assembly welcomes the steps taken by FIFA and
UEFA in response to its request to include human rights compliance
in the commitments that countries bidding to host major football
competitions must enter into, but current regulations must also
be supplemented and tightened.
6. Requiring that the hosting and staging of a competition and
any legacy and post-event-related activities do not involve adverse
impacts on internationally recognised human rights is not enough.
First, bidding countries must provide a minimum level of guarantees
of respect for human rights, or at least some specific rights, for
their bids to be considered. For example, the Assembly considers
that any country where women do not have the right to participate
freely in sport or where there is clear discrimination in their
access to sport should simply be disqualified. Second, staging competitions
must contribute to real and lasting progress in the field of human
rights.
7. The Assembly is fully aware that this is a sensitive issue
and that sport must remain politically neutral but believes that
strict rules on human rights compliance are coherent with such neutrality
and even strengthen it. The Assembly stands ready to continue working
with its partners to find realistic and balanced solutions together.
8. The Assembly considers that protecting underage players and
promoting gender equality, as well as fighting discrimination on
any grounds, should be priorities for all levels of the wider sports
movement and of football organisations in particular. A greater
proportion of available resources should be allocated to measures to
achieve these goals.
9. With regard, more specifically, to protecting minors, the
Assembly welcomes the regulatory developments and concrete initiatives
developed by FIFA and UEFA. In particular, it welcomes the roll-out
of the FIFA Guardians™ programme and the toolkit produced with the
help of experts from the Council of Europe and the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), among others, and the “uefa-safeguarding.eu”
digital platform launched by UEFA in collaboration with the Terre
des hommes Foundation. These are all initiatives that can make a
real contribution to creating a safer environment for children and
teenagers who play football.
10. Sexual abuse is unfortunately a reality in sport; so is impunity
within the highest ranks of several sports associations and clubs.
The Council of Europe has mobilised efforts to tackle the problem.
The “Start to talk” initiative invites member States to take three
types of action and offers a set of tools to develop them. The Enlarged
Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) is launching pilot projects to
establish networks of child welfare officers in sport under its
Child Safeguarding in Sport scheme. This module is likely to be
added to the “Start to Talk” initiative. To date, about 20 Council
of Europe countries are using the Organisation’s tools. The Assembly
hopes that the remaining member States will take steps to get involved
in this initiative.
11. Both the sports movement and public authorities must make
much greater investments in this area. The Assembly therefore welcomes
the idea (discussed within the context of the EU sectoral social
dialogue committee by UEFA, the ECA (European Club Association)),
the European Leagues and FIFPRO (Fédération Internationale des Associations
de Footballeurs Professionnels – the World Players’ Union) of setting
up a European research project to map existing standards for the
protection of minors in elite academies and for identifying potential
gaps with regard to the rights of the child.
12. The Assembly is also following with great interest a project
(which FIFA is considering with other partners) to set up a safe
sport centre or agency: a multisport, interinstitutional and intergovernmental
body to deal with cases of abuse in sport, providing a pool of services
and expertise that could assist all stakeholders to eradicate such
abuse, putting the needs of victims first. The Assembly fully supports
this project and hopes that all governments will make a commitment
to ensuring it can be implemented quickly.
13. The Assembly is convinced that sport plays a pivotal role
in promoting gender equality since its symbolic value and the messages
it conveys are so powerful. This is particularly the case for football
with its hundreds of millions of (male and female) fans all around
the world. Accordingly, the Assembly, while welcoming the progress
that has already been made in this field, considers that stakeholder
action in this area should be further enhanced, including in terms
of greater financial solidarity between men’s and women’s football,
and given a higher profile.
14. In the current context marked by the damage wrought by the
Covid-19 pandemic, including in the world of sport in general, the
Assembly believes that it is time to give thorough consideration
to measures that can help redress the most glaring imbalances in
the football ecosystem. Financial disparities between clubs and leagues
are to some extent inevitable; they also depend on each country’s
specific socio-economic situation and the diverging scale of their
media markets. The Assembly is, however, concerned about football’s polarisation
and increasing disparities, as well as some blatant financial excesses,
and it calls for more solidarity within the football system. It
believes that the principle of open competitions must be preserved, considers
that UEFA must remain the entity responsible for the organisation
of the European club competitions and firmly opposes the European
Super League project.
15. The Assembly attaches great importance to the reform of the
transfer system – including new regulations on agents – undertaken
by FIFA in co-operation with other stakeholders, and is convinced
that the main objectives underlying this reform are justified: ensuring
transparency of financial flows; reducing contractual instability
and speculation while also setting reasonable limits on the sometimes
exorbitant agents’ fees; strengthening redistribution in favour
of training clubs; and providing better protection for minors to
prevent exploitation.
16. The Assembly is aware that the competence of FIFA to regulate
the profession of agent or intermediary in the world of football
is controversial. Nevertheless, the interests at stake call for
uniform regulations at the global level to avoid distortions on
the international transfer market; as far as the Assembly is concerned,
FIFA is entitled to adopt such regulations provided that the constraints
and limitations established therein are reasonable and do not go
beyond what is necessary to protect the legitimate interests in
question.
17. The Assembly questions the advisability of the plan currently
under consideration by FIFA to hold the World Cup every two years.
It considers that such a change would have disastrous consequences
for European football, which is why both UEFA and the European Leagues
are strongly opposed to the project. It could also harm the entire
sports ecosystem by making the two main global sporting events –
the World Cup and the Olympic Games – compete for media coverage
and therefore also financial support.
18. The Assembly is closely monitoring the roll-out of UEFA’s
new format for club competition and would like to see it improve
the revenue redistribution system. The Assembly is also interested
in the ongoing discussion on reforming financial fair play rules
which should continue to promote sound management of club finances and
help improve competitive balance.
19. Despite the heavy financial losses incurred during the health
crisis, the football industry is poised to bounce back more quickly
than other sectors and, in the Assembly’s view, the sport has a
valuable role to play, particularly at grass-roots level. It is
crucial that clubs, according to their means, and fans join forces
to revive local socio-economic systems and build their resilience
through social responsibility programmes, which need reinforcing.
Despite the fallout from the crisis, this could be an opportunity
for football to forge even stronger ties with communities and let
players, fans and their associations play a more important role,
including by increasing their involvement in decision-making processes
as part of more inclusive football governance at all levels.
20. The Assembly therefore calls on FIFA and UEFA to review the
conditions that countries bidding to host major football events
must meet in terms of safeguarding human rights and to provide for,
if they do not already:
20.1 a thorough,
contextual human rights compliance assessment as one of the key
criteria for accepting any country’s bid; this assessment should
be based on up-to-date reports from the relevant international institutions
and/or independent non-governmental organisations recognised for
their competence in the field; in the case of Council of Europe
member States, reports and analyses by the Organisation’s monitoring
bodies on compliance with key human rights standards should be taken
into account;
20.2 the requirement to comply with predetermined minimum standards
on, for example, workers’ (including migrants’) rights, gender equality
(including in sport, but also elsewhere), protecting athletes of
minor age from sexual abuse and all forms of violence, combating
discrimination in sport and safeguarding fundamental civil and political
rights, in particular freedom of expression – including media freedom
– and freedom of peaceful assembly, both as regards staging the
competitions in question and otherwise;
20.3 the identification, as part of the thorough assessment,
of the measures required to meet the minimum standards set out above,
with a timetable for implementation which countries should adhere
to for their bids to be considered, and a human rights action plan
which countries must pledge to follow if they win the bidding process;
as regards workers’ rights, the ILO’s role should be systematically highlighted
and host countries should commit to co-operating with the ILO to
draw up and carry out the necessary reforms;
20.4 the binding nature of these commitments not only by national
associations but also – and especially – by host countries’ governments,
given their role in ensuring respect for human rights by all public
bodies and by any private operator under their jurisdiction involved
in organising the event in question;
20.5 the setting up of effective mechanisms for monitoring
compliance with the commitments made, including specific procedures
for regular assessment by independent external stakeholders of the responses
to human rights risks involved in staging the event, as well as
mechanisms for direct dialogue with the public authorities of the
host countries to analyse and solve any problems;
20.6 the accessibility of effective remedies in host countries,
with independent bodies empowered to investigate, punish and redress
any human rights violations;
20.7 the imposition of appropriate penalties on host countries
and their national associations in the event of failure to comply
with the commitments made or to implement follow-up measures required
by monitoring bodies, which must include taking the decision to
relocate the competition in question to a different country.
21. With regard to the protection and human development of minors,
the Assembly:
21.1 calls on the
International Olympic Committee and all international sports federations,
as well as national sporting bodies, to join FIFA in setting up
a safe sport centre or agency which is financially viable and which
can operate in collaboration with sporting bodies and public authorities
to jointly combat cases of abuse in sport and help the victims of
such abuse;
21.2 encourages UEFA, the ECA, the European Leagues and FIFPRO
to continue their European research project to map existing standards
for the protection of minors in elite football academies and identify
potential gaps with regard to children’s rights in football;
21.3 calls on FIFA, UEFA, the ECA, the European Leagues and
FIFPRO to strengthen the elements of their programmes aimed at young
players’ education and human development and urges them to work together
to foster efforts in this regard by national football associations.
22. With regard to gender equality, the Assembly calls on FIFA
and UEFA to:
22.1 encourage, including
through the adoption of more stringent provisions, their member associations
to enshrine rules in their statutes to ensure that the composition
of their executive boards and standing or ad hoc committees includes
a number of women at least proportional to the number of female
members registered, with a quota of at least 25% of seats reserved
for women; compliance with this minimum quota – which should be
gradually raised to 40% within a reasonable timeline – should be made
a prerequisite for receiving development funds;
22.2 promote equal pay and rewards for national team players
of any gender by the respective national associations;
22.3 further strengthen development schemes in women’s football
and training programmes to promote women’s leadership at national
level and increase the number of female coaches and referees, in
collaboration with national associations;
22.4 step up their efforts to counter sexual harassment and
gender discrimination by reinforcing the liability of their member
associations in this respect and by developing, where appropriate,
targeted projects in collaboration with associations in countries
where these problems are more prevalent.
23. With regard to the reform of the transfer system, the introduction
of FIFA’s clearing house for international transfers and regulations
on football agents, the Assembly:
23.1 calls
on the Council of Europe member States to recognise FIFA’s competence
to regulate at global level the football transfer system, including
the adoption of rules seeking to ensure protection of minors, the
transparency of financial flows linked to players transfers and
a sound framework for the access to and exercise of the profession
of agent or intermediary, also with a view to avoiding conflicts of
interest and exorbitant fees, provided that the constraints and
limitations established by these rules are reasonable and do not
go beyond what is necessary to protect the legitimate interests
at stake;
23.2 asks FIFA to take due account of the opinion of the Council
of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) on the reform
project and encourages FIFA to continue its collaboration with GRECO;
23.3 stresses the importance of ensuring the transparency of
all financial flows related to international transfers and calls
on FIFA and other stakeholders to agree that not only commissions
but also all agents’ services fees related to international transfers
should gradually be processed through the clearing house system
and that agents and their activity should be subject to compliance
assessment procedures; in this context, the system should include
enforceable obligations to provide accurate data and the power to
investigate and fittingly punish any failure to comply with such
obligations, while ensuring robust personal data protection;
23.4 with a view to also ensuring the transparency of financial
flows related to national transfers, calls on the relevant stakeholders
to agree to set up, alongside the FIFA clearing house system, national clearing
houses, which should operate according to the same standards so
as to ensure uniform data collection and analysis;
23.5 urges FIFA and all stakeholders to reach a balanced agreement
that respects the right of agents to be remunerated in a manner
commensurate with the services they provide to clubs and players,
but prohibits excesses and caps agents’ fees by establishing a maximum
percentage of the gross transfer price and/or wages that these fees
may not exceed and an absolute limit on the total sums that may
be paid to the agent of the releasing club for a transaction;
23.6 calls for an increase in the training compensation paid
to clubs in the event of transfers and proposes that the overall
amount of such compensation should be determined so as to be at
least equal to the amount of the agent’s fee paid by the club releasing
the player.
24. With regard to transfers of minors, the Assembly calls on
FIFA to:
24.1 maintain, for international
transfers, the general prohibition of Article 19 of the Regulations
on the Status and Transfer of Players and to postpone the possible
extension of the exception concerning players aged between 16 and
18 years, currently limited to the European Union and the European Economic
Area, in particular to prevent this from increasing the risk of
exploitation;
24.2 ensure that, in all cases, transfers of minors are subject
to very strict conditions, compliance with which by the national
associations and clubs must be verified before granting transfer
authorisations; national associations and clubs should commit to
ensuring, at the least:
24.2.1 effective protection of all
players of minor age against any form of exploitation and abuse;
24.2.2 the effective provision, by the clubs to the minor-age
players they register, of a stable environment not only for professional
(football) development, but also for education and/or vocational
training, and adequate health and social insurance benefits;
24.2.3 the stability of the contractual relation with the minor-age
player at least until the end of the season of the player’s 18th
birthday;
24.2.4 general working conditions no less favourable than those
of the other players of the club and not below the international
ILO standards;
24.2.5 any assistance the minor-age player may need to find his
or her place within the local host community;
24.3 draw up, in collaboration with the confederations and
FIFPRO, as well as with other partners and experts:
24.3.1 model
provisions to be included in the regulations of the confederations
and/or of the national associations on monitoring mechanisms, effective
remedies and the system of sanctions to uphold the protection of
minor-age players;
24.3.2 a guide to transfers of minor-age players and their protection,
including all relevant information, for example on the risks of
trafficking by fake agents and their phishing and scamming practices
on the internet (as well as ways to detect and avoid them), official
procedures for international transfers, standard rights and obligations
of minor-age players and clubs, and contact points at FIFA, confederation,
country and local levels; this guide should be published on the
websites of FIFA and the confederations, in the most common languages,
and national associations should translate it and publish it in
their respective languages;
24.4 require, within the new regulatory framework for agents
and intermediaries, specific qualifications for anyone wishing to
represent minor-age players, in addition to those needed to obtain
a professional licence, and to set up a public, centralised, international
agent register listing all licensed agents authorised to represent
minors, which would be made available via the FIFA website.
25. With regard to FIFA’s current deliberations on whether to
hold the World Cup every two years, the Assembly calls on FIFA not
to take decisions that are potentially detrimental to European football
and sport worldwide without the agreement of European stakeholders
and the International Olympic Committee.
26. The Assembly invites UEFA to reconsider the criteria retained
for allocating the UEFA Champions League prize money and to reduce
the 10-year club coefficient (at present 30% of the revenue) so
that more resources could be given to solidarity redistribution,
seeking to support youth training and education and the development
of women’s football.
27. The Assembly invites the European Leagues to establish a solidarity
fund, which could be fed by a small percentage of TV rights received
at national level by the richest leagues; this fund could be designed
to finance projects (including joint projects involving different
leagues) in line with strategic development goals predefined by
the European Leagues. In the context of recovery from the Covid-19
pandemic, such a fund could also be intended to support projects
created and implemented in collaboration with fans’ associations.
28. Finally, the Assembly calls on all stakeholders to value institutional
dialogue among themselves, ensure more inclusive decision making,
encourage effective involvement of players’ and fans’ representatives
in football governance at all levels and reinforce collaboration
and co-ordination of actions they implement to support the balanced
development of football, and to avoid misusing resources made available
for solidarity because of overlapping initiatives and duplication
of efforts.
