September 15 – FIFPRO and FIFPRO Europe have demanded an overhaul of FIFA’s governance so that “no single office can act unilaterally again a repeat.”
The players’ unions highlighted FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s attempt to sell off the world governing body’s commercial rights into the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) newco without any formal consultation.
They called for an independent review of FIFA’s executive decision-making structures and for the integration of football’s stakeholders – “the players, clubs and leagues that create the game’s value” – into that decision making.
To enforce their points, and renewed calls for seats at the decision-making table, they referred to data from a new report compiled by FIFPRO Europe, Player IQ and Football Benchmark, showing that European-based players accounted for a staggering 94% of total player value at the 2026 World Cup this summer.
Titled ‘Protecting the Global Player Workforce’ the analysis shows that the European market is the major contributor of players to FIFA’s competition and even more important for its value – a value that Infantino had pegged at about $20 billion in his sell-off attempt.
“Every individual award of the last five editions of the FIFA World Cup – Golden Ball, Golden Boot, Best Young Player, Golden Glove – was won by a player with a European employment contract, and of the 856 players employed within the European market at the 2026 World Cup, 451 are non-European nationals, generating 33% of the tournament’s total player value: the clearest evidence of a shared gateway, not a closed system,” says FIFPRO’s statement.
They go further in pointing out that the global nature of European club football is not confined to players, but that 40% of Europe’s Big-Five league clubs have majority ownership from outside of Europe, “further evidence that the European employment market is a global gateway that needs to be governed responsibly, not sold behind closed doors.”
The subtext is of course that the behind-closed-doors deal was attempted with a private equity business linked to Infantino’s newest friend, US President Donald Trump. Thrive Capital is run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. If the deal had gone through the world’s biggest and most diverse sport would have had potentially controlling influence from the US’s first family.
FIFPRO says FIFA’s flagship competition depends on value created by the professional football ecosystem – not by FIFA. The $2.25 billion FIFA Forward Enterprise programme can only happen with that eco-system in place. The players create the product, but they are trained and paid by the clubs and within the domestic leagues. FIFA get to use them pretty much free of charge.
“Safeguarding this interconnected ecosystem is essential to protecting the global development and solidarity system that depends upon it. Recognising how that value is created, and sustaining the conditions that support it, is central to the future growth, investment and solidarity of the global game as a whole. Sixty per cent of 2026 World Cup player value is already concentrated among just 20 releasing employers – all European,” says FIFPRO.
The unions also point out that World Cup revenue returned as prize money “has fallen from an estimated 10.5% in 2006 to around 7.7% in 2026, even as tournament revenues have multiplied. Players receive only a fraction of that return, while participating federations rely on it as FIFA’s only performance-based revenue stream.”
FIFPRO argues that players, clubs, employment markets and national federations are financing FIFA, a crucial argument regarding the balance of power that FIFA and Infantino have refused to recognise or respect.
“The governance gap that allowed the global ecosystem to be put at risk continues to exist,” says FIFPRO.
“FIFPRO and FIFPRO Europe call for an independent review of the FIFA Council’s executive decision-making function, so that no single office can act unilaterally again, and for the formal integration of professional football stakeholders – the players, clubs and leagues that create the game’s value – into that decision-making, alongside Member Associations.
“It is a shared opportunity for the global football community to strengthen football’s governance, so that it reflects and serves everyone who sustains and depends on the game,” the statement concludes.
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