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Resolution 2200 (2018)
Good football governance
1. Too little money harms football,
too much is killing it. Football must be prevented from self-destructing. There
is far more to football than scoring goals and winning matches and
titles. The Parliamentary Assembly believes that sports governance,
and especially the governance of football, must be based on the
values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, as well as
the values of living together, such as tolerance, respect, fair
play and solidarity. In order for football – and sport in general
– to be a vehicle for the transmission of these values and contribute
to their protection and dissemination, everyone involved, namely
senior officials, players, agents, sponsors and business partners,
among others, as well as the representatives of public authorities,
must be above suspicion and their conduct must be beyond reproach.
2. The reality, however, is completely different. Doping, illegal
betting and the manipulation of sports results, violence and racist
speech, sexual harassment and gender discrimination, questionable
connections between sport and the top levels of politics, corruption,
financial malpractice, cases of tax evasion and other scandals continue
to make front-page headlines. Often considerations of a geopolitical
order influence decision making. Football cannot be a lawless zone;
action must be taken to deal with and eradicate these scourges. This
requires greater effort and determination by all partners. It is
necessary to ensure genuine independence of the bodies responsible
for detecting and punishing breaches of sports ethics, because this
independence is indispensable to the good governance of sport.
3. Football does not belong to one person; it belongs to everybody.
The public authorities have to face up to their responsibilities
to put an end to the financial excess to which football strays.
It is necessary to end the tendency to conceal, ignore, play down
and trivialise overindulgences. The excesses we are witnessing are
not only socially unacceptable, but they are also creating imbalances
so pronounced that they are undermining the very foundations of
football. All the parties concerned must co-operate in order to
achieve a change of culture. The Assembly is determined to work
with all stakeholders in order to advocate this change and to prevent football
from self-destructing.
4. Confronted with the power of sports organisations and the
colossal economic issues at stake, the public authorities waver.
On one hand, they are reluctant to take action on the pretext of
the autonomy of sport, although this principle cannot justify sport
being a lawless zone; on the other hand, they overlook this principle when
their representatives sit on sports governing bodies. Moreover,
they are prepared to make exceptions to the law and agree to conditions
imposed by organisers in order to be able to host major sports events.
It is therefore crucial to examine the interactions and connections
between politics, business and sport.
5. The Assembly notes that progress has been made with regard,
among others things, to the systems of governance of the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the Union of European Football
Associations (UEFA), their commitment to combating discrimination
and to promoting mutual tolerance and respect, their gender-equality
policies and their social responsibility programmes. It also notes, however,
that a number of problems remain. It is necessary to ensure that
the reforms are properly implemented and supplemented, including
by seeking to bring about a radical change in the culture of governance
at all levels so that it is firmly based on respect for human rights
and the rule of law, internal democracy and participation, transparency
and responsibility, the unreserved upholding of the highest ethical values,
solidarity and concern for the common good.
6. The Assembly welcomes the progress made by FIFA and UEFA in
incorporating human rights into their system of governance, including
criteria concerning the protection of human rights in the processes
of choosing host countries for major sports events and in the tendering
procedures for the selection of commercial partners. The Assembly
is satisfied with the action taken in response to its Resolution 2053 (2015) on
the reform of football governance.
7. Responsibility for the effective protection of human rights
lies primarily with the public authorities; however, all sports
organisations have a role to play in this regard and must exert
a positive influence on the attitude of countries that host sports
events. The Assembly welcomes the concrete initiatives taken by
FIFA to monitor and improve the working conditions at the construction
sites of the World Cup in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. However,
the situation of immigrant workers in Qatar remains a concern, even
though some progress has been noted at the 2022 World Cup construction
sites. Problems concerning the rights of workers also exist in Russia.
The Assembly is confident that FIFA will continue its endeavours
to consolidate these improvements in these two countries and ensure
that they benefit all workers and not only those employed at the
football sites.
8. The Assembly believes that all partners should work together
to promote human rights in and through sport and accordingly advocates
closer co-operation between sports organisations and international organisations
operating in the field of human rights, at both global and regional
level. It welcomes the creation of a Human Rights Advisory Board
within FIFA and hopes that co-operation can take place with the
Council of Europe and the Assembly itself on the protection of minors,
combating racism and discrimination and the promotion of gender
equality. The Assembly also welcomes the negotiations under way
on the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding between UEFA
and the Council of Europe and is prepared to work together on the
measures to be implemented to strengthen the protection of human
rights and promote good governance and sports ethics in Europe.
9. In order to make progress in these areas, the Assembly counts
on the co-operation not only of FIFA and UEFA, but also of other
key partners, such as the Association of European Professional Football
Leagues (EPFL), the European Club Association (ECA) and the International
Federation of Professional Football Players (FIFPro). The Assembly
thanks these five organisations for their contributions to its work.
10. With regard to the requirement to ensure that the decision-making
bodies within sports organisations are independent of the political
authorities, and also that the internal supervisory bodies are genuinely
independent of the decision-making bodies, the Assembly recommends
that FIFA, UEFA, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the
international sports organisations:
10.1. include in their statutes a rule prohibiting any individual
who is a member of a government or holds a government office from
sitting on their decision-making bodies;
10.2. review their regulations on the supervisory bodies which
ensure compliance with standards of ethics and good governance,
in order to safeguard the independence in practice – in both procedural and
substantive terms – of the members of these bodies, especially their
chairpersons. In this connection, there should be open, transparent
and objective procedures for selecting candidates for these offices,
and the role of management boards in appointment and removal procedures
should be limited; in addition to providing for a limitation on
terms of office, the principle of partial renewal should apply so
as to have at least one third of members in office at each renewal,
to ensure the continuity of the work of these bodies;
10.3. make reasonable efforts to punish those responsible for
malpractice or exerting undue influence, and ensure that effective
mechanisms are introduced to combat corruption.
11. With regard to the protection of human rights, and in particular
the protection of minors, and the promotion of gender equality and
the human development of all football players, the Assembly recommends:
11.1. that FIFA:
11.1.1. encourage
the Qatari authorities to ensure that the worker welfare standards
applicable to workers employed at the 2022 World Cup construction
sites apply to all workers;
11.1.2. design support programmes – particularly the Forward Programme
– in such a way as to promote the human development of players,
by linking the allocation of funds distributed under these programmes
to the obligation to give young footballers an education and vocational training;
11.2. that FIFA and UEFA, each within its sphere of responsibility:
11.2.1. introduce effective checks on compliance with the obligations
entered into by countries that apply to host major football competitions
and by their national associations;
11.2.2. insist with the governments of host countries on the necessity
to protect fundamental civil and political rights, and in particular
freedom of expression – including the freedom of the media – and
freedom of peaceful assembly, and this not only in connection with
their competitions, but beyond;
11.2.3. ensure that all cases of serious breaches of human rights,
including the rights of workers, by private companies involved in
the organisation of their competitions, beginning with those who
build stadiums and infrastructure, are made public and that effective
penalties are applied when the follow-up measures recommended by
supervisory bodies are not implemented; the governments of host
countries must accept this responsibility;
11.2.4. ensure compliance with the transfer rules in order to
prevent “trading in children” and consider, in collaboration with
the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking
in Human Beings (GRETA), the mechanisms and measures required to
put a stop to the chain of “forced transfers” of underage players,
which falls within the definition of human trafficking;
11.2.5. initiate a reflection on the protection of underage players
and the promotion of their education, as well as the promotion of
gender equality in and through football, by taking account of the
specific proposals in the report entitled “Good football governance”
(Doc. 14452)
and of Recommendation CM/Rec(2012)10 of the Committee of Ministers
to member States on the protection of child and young athletes from
dangers associated with migration;
11.2.6. promote the adoption by their member associations of rules
enshrined in their statutes in order to ensure that the composition
of their executive boards and standing committees includes a number
of women at least proportional to the number of female members registered, with
a minimum number of places reserved for women in all cases;
11.2.7. increase the funds allocated to education programmes and
the financial support for educational projects launched by national
associations;
11.2.8. strengthen their financial support for training programmes
to promote leadership for women at national level and to increase
the number of female coaches and referees;
11.2.9. use a higher percentage of their resources to promote
women’s football, particularly in countries where associations are
less wealthy, by studying forms of co-operation with national associations;
11.2.10. launch an information campaign to combat sexual harassment
and gender discrimination.
12. The Assembly asks FIFA to take reasonable measures and shed
full light on the latest procedures for the award of the World Cup,
and in particular the procedure concerning the 2022 World Cup in
Qatar, which appears to be seriously flawed.
13. The Assembly calls on FIFA and UEFA not to lose sight of its
previous recommendations to which there has not yet been a satisfactory
response. In particular, FIFA and, more generally, all major sports
organisations should consider separating their regulatory powers
and commercial operations, with the establishment of a subsidiary
that would be responsible for the management of commercial operations.
14. With regard to the promotion of good governance and sporting
values, the protection of professional players’ rights and a reflection
on financial excesses in the world of football, the Assembly considers
it essential for all partners to work together on these matters.
It calls on FIFA and UEFA to set up a joint working group to discuss
financial fair play, caps on player transfer fees and player wages,
player ownership, the status of agents or intermediaries and other
issues, by involving other stakeholders.
15. The Assembly calls on the European Commission and on the Enlarged
Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) to participate in this working
group once it has been set up and confirms its willingness to contribute
to a joint reflection.
16. The Assembly asks FIFA, UEFA and the bodies representing leagues,
clubs and players at national and international levels to take the
expertise of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) into
consideration with a view to improving, where applicable, their
internal control procedures and also stepping up supervision in
relation to dubious transfer transactions.
17. The Assembly calls on the authorities of the European Union,
in concertation with the IOC, FIFA, UEFA and the Council of Europe,
to examine the feasibility and promote the establishment of an independent observatory
entrusted with assessing the governance of football by placing the
emphasis on, among other things, ethics and the integrity of elections.
This would not confer on this observatory the power to govern the sport
but to ensure that the principles of good governance are being effectively
implemented and shared.
18. The Assembly asks the public authorities to work with international
sports bodies, especially FIFA and UEFA, to ensure that ordinary
law is applied with regard to financial and taxation matters.