The Premier League, Bundesliga, LaLiga and Serie A have jointly called for fundamental reform of FIFA’s governance, accusing the world governing body’s president of promoting “exploitative ideas” and urging a new structure with real checks on power.
In a statement published on Friday under the title “To Unify the Game, FIFA Must Reform,” the four leagues said FIFA’s foundations have been threatened by concentrated regulatory, commercial and political authority in a single office. They argued that surface-level process changes after the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan are not enough.
Why the leagues spoke out
The statement is signed by Premier League chief executive Richard Masters, Bundesliga CEO Marc Lenz, LaLiga president Javier Tebas and Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo. The leagues describe themselves as founding members of European Leagues and the World Leagues Association and say they are speaking up because FIFA’s “relentless expansionism” affects domestic competitions that sustain most of the game week to week.
They pointed to the withdrawal of the FFE scheme — a proposal to sell a stake in FIFA’s commercial rights, including the World Cup, that collapsed after global opposition this summer — and said the conditions that produced it remain. The statement also argued that unilateral decisions on the International Match Calendar leave leagues, clubs and players without a meaningful say, and cited the leagues’ October 2024 complaint to the European Commission on that issue.
“FIFA’s governance problem goes far beyond the role of one individual,” the leagues wrote. “The wider question is whether FIFA’s president should simultaneously wield such regulatory, commercial and political power without effective checks and balances.”
The three reforms they demand
The leagues jointly called on FIFA to adopt three core commitments.
First, give affected stakeholders a real role in decision-making through a permanent body representing national associations, leagues, clubs and players from men’s and women’s football, with agreement required on matters such as the calendar, employment, competitions and football’s core assets.
Second, require evidence-based decision-making: major proposals must include a published rationale, supporting evidence and an independent impact assessment before any vote, with published explanations of final choices.
Third, protect FIFA’s regulatory role from its commercial function with institutional safeguards, including genuinely independent ethics, financial oversight and electoral bodies, so that “FIFA’s core competition rights, including the World Cup, are held in trust for all of football.”
What happens next
With a FIFA presidential election due in March 2027, the leagues encouraged candidates to endorse the principles, publish their own reform programmes and take part in fair election rules. They also called for an independently chaired Governance Convention within the first 100 days of the next presidential mandate, mandated to report publicly within six months.
They invited confederations, associations, leagues, clubs, player unions, supporter groups and public authorities on every continent to support the cause. The statement does not name an alternative candidate or explicitly demand that Gianni Infantino stand down; its focus is structural reform of how FIFA is led.
Earlier this week Infantino told FIFA members he was open to an independent external review of governance around major strategic initiatives while affirming his intention to remain president. Friday’s statement from Europe’s four biggest leagues raises the pressure on that agenda ahead of next year’s vote.