71st FIFA Congress Address

We are still living in difficult times and health comes first so our thoughts are obviously with those who have been suffering from the pandemic and also our prayers and our thanks go to our modern angels – the medical people who have done so much to help us.

Let me also thank each and every one of you for your resilience and solidarity and your work this year – and let me as well thank each and every member of the FIFA staff for what they are doing and their contribution to keep the ball rolling – they’ve done an excellent job in the past year.

Football stopped almost everywhere – it’s now recovering slowly but we can be a little bit optimistic for the future, we still have to remain vigilant everywhere in the world and football has proven resilient in this time. This required compromise, generosity of spirit, team work – and you have all delivered on that. You rose, we rose to this challenge. Football is hope, football is joy and a little bit of football brings normality back. I have been very happy that FIFA has been able to help you a little bit – for example, with the USD1.5bn COVID-19 Relief Plan which is unique in the world of sport. This has been financed entirely from the reserves of FIFA with no external help because we have reserves and why do we have reserves? Because we’ve been running FIFA in the last few years in a professional and diligent way. Money in FIFA does not evaporate anymore and what we don’t spend, we set aside. This money is not FIFA’s money, this money is your money and when you are in need FIFA needs to be there to help and that is exactly what we’ve tried to do with this COVID-19 Relief Plan.

It is of course my main responsibility to make sure that the resources we generate are invested in football with the highest standard of transparency, compliance and good governance – this is not negotiable and this goes as well for the COVID-19 Relief Plan. Equally important has been the return to football protocols – it was important to come back to play football. It was important to ensure safety. It was important to make sure we can play again, even in empty stadiums, but it’s a step in the right direction. I would like to commend all of you for your efforts, I know it’s not easy but continue like that. It’s important to remember and remind ourselves of the unity and solidarity that we need – I would like to thank you for that. It’s simple but it’s clear this has to be the pillar for our future. By the way, we are on track to deliver on the USD 6.44bn revenues for next year and we will maybe even be a bit better because we are working very hard for you and for football.

What do we want to make in the year or years ahead? Well, we want to make football truly global. My responsibility as FIFA President is to learn from the past, including from mistakes in the past and to plan the future – that’s what leadership is about. That is what FIFA is about. Article 2 of our statutes – you should read it once. It says that it is our duty to improve the game of football and to promote it globally. It is also our duty to organise our own international competitions. Our competitions are your competitions because you are FIFA. In whatever we do, we always have to think about the fans, we always have to think about the countries all over the world and we always have to think about the players. We are at the service of football, we are not the protagonists of football. We have to set the scene for the players to shine and for the fans to enjoy, to live football with passion. We have to know what our job is.

Ultimately, where do we want to go? We have to help have 50 top national teams and 50 top clubs worldwide. Women and men alike. We have to ask ourselves – we are always saying football is a global sport but is football really global? Well the answer is no, it is not. Clubs, for example, there are fewer and fewer countries and even fewer clubs who have the highest resources and this financial disparity, which goes along with sporting disparity, is growing. Out of the top 30 clubs in terms of revenues there is not one single club from outside of Europe and out of the top 20 – they are from only five European countries. This trend is growing more imbalanced. When it comes to national teams, the trend is also going into more imbalance. 100% of the semi-finalists in the last four World Cups came from only two confederations – Europe and South America. Seven out of eight in the last Women’s World Cup came from Europe and one from CONCACAF, the United States who then won the tournament. So dear friends, we have to congratulate the European member associations, they are doing a fantastic job and we want Europe to grow even more but we want the rest of the world and the rest of Europe who are not part of the elite to grow as well and at a much higher pace than so far. We want to make football truly global.

We are speaking a lot in the last few weeks about the football pyramid – the clubs, the leagues, the member associations, the confederations and at the top of the pyramid you have FIFA. A lot has been talked in recent weeks about a Super League in Europe. Some kind of breakaway competition outside of the football structures. I have said it before and let me say it again clearly and unequivocally, FIFA is against any such project. We believe, I believe, that football does not and should not have to look outside of our institutional structure to address challenges of our sport. Above all we should not depart from, or lose faith in, the core principles of solidarity and equal opportunity – these are the pillars upon which our sport is built. At the same time, and I also want to be very clear about this, the existing model of football is not perfect either. As we have seen we have a situation across the world where there is insufficient balance – we do not see equal opportunities throughout the world, we do not necessarily see too much solidarity either to be honest. There is frankly speaking, a concentration of money and player talent which does not serve the global development interests of the game and it is our responsibility as FIFA to address this imbalance. We cannot simply ignore it and we will address it with everyone in the spirit of cooperation and dialogue. So how are we going to make football truly global?

We want to focus on 11 areas. 11 areas for action, for a concrete action.

The first one is, of course, the international match calendar. We will face challenges and questions. How many matches can a player play per year? How many competition do we want or need and what kind of competitions? Do we play too much or don’t we play enough in some parts of the world? Do we want more games or do we want less but more meaningful games? And what about the intercontinental travel of players when they have to play for their national teams? We have to realise that the international match calendar is global. It has to take into account the variety of situations such as climate and geography all over the world. Let me be very clear, the starting point is not that the calendar is full and so therefore nothing changes. The starting point is the exact opposite of that. We have a blank sheet of paper and we are open to take on board all views and opinions about how we can make the international match calendar better, maybe we cannot but we need to try – we need to be open, we need to be inclusive, we need to give everyone the right to speak without any fear because we need to find the right balance between club football and national team football, the right balance between top and grassroots, the right balance for what will be right for football. In the past decades FIFA was busy with other things, not with competitions except for the World Cup. During these decades many leagues, associations and confederations have developed and grown their competitions and it’s great because this is football, this is what football is about. Now we even have private organisations and companies who want to organise international competitions so where is FIFA in this? It is our statutory duty to do it, it is our task to do it with you and for you. We need the world to participate and not just a few.

So for solidarity let me explain one thing today – a big league generates revenues, billions of revenues, from all over the world and these revenues are distributed where? To the 20 or 18 clubs of that particular league with a small percentage going to solidarity in that particular country – a confederation organising a competition generates its revenues from all over the world and distributes its revenues to participating clubs and a little bit of solidarity in the continent and it is normal, it is their right to do so. They act in accordance with their statutes and regulations but the only body in the world who is generating revenues from all over the world and reinvests and distributes its revenues all over the world in solidarity and football development is FIFA and we to take this element into account as well when we speak about the development of football.

So the second area is the men’s competitions. We have already decided, as you know, to increase the number of teams for the World Cup in 2026 from 32 to 48. We did so without increasing the number of games for the team that will become world champions. With 32 teams or 48 teams they still have to play seven games in 32 days if you want to become world champion. Exactly the same. But we give 16 countries in the world the dream and possibility to play in a World Cup. We know what this means to qualify for a world cup for a football movement, for a country, for the pride of everyone. The same for the Club World Cup, we have decided to create a new, expanded Club World Cup which should foster club football all over the world because we need to be inclusive, we need inclusivity. In the spirit of understanding and compromise the first edition of this Club World Cup which should be taking place now has been postponed. Of course, in the same spirit of understanding and compromise, we will fix a new date for this new Club World Cup which will be an exciting tournament for the world.

The third area is women’s competitions. Let me give you one figure at the outset. The increase in the number of teams, women’s national teams, who participated in the qualifiers for the 2019 World Cup compared to 2023 is incredible. We’ve moved from 140 to over 180 participants. Very soon all of our 211 member associations will have a women’s national team because those who are not yet there are preparing to be there. A new era is starting for women’s football, dear friends. A new era in which we have asked the Congress to agree that it should be up to the Congress to vote for the host of the next Women’s World Cup like for the men – why is there a difference? It doesn’t make sense.

The bidding process which has to be professional and transparent and ethical as was the case. We are investing USD 1bn in four years to boost women’s football, we will talk about frequency of the Women’s World Cup. Should it take place every two years or every four years as it is now? The first one launching this idea was the President of the French Football Federation, now joined by the President of the Saudi Football Federation – let’s discuss. We want to launch, as well, a new Women’s Club World Cup because women’s football is equally as important as men’s club football. We are working with our women’s football department on the professionalisation of women’s football with modules tailormade for all member associations giving pathways to girls to be able to shine on the highest stage. We will commercialise women’s football also independently – we are not going any more to our broadcasters and sponsors to tell them that if they want to buy the men’s World Cup that they get an addition of the Women’s World Cup as well – these times are over, gone. Make no mistake, women’s football is about to become one of the world’s most popular sports. This is not only a sporting achievement but also a social one and we can all be proud – you can be proud of that.

The next area is youth competitions. We’ve talked for a couple of years now about what we want to do with our youth competitions. We have U17s, U20s, boys and girls – every two years. We need commitment to make changes here. We know that if we keep the tournaments every two years, every second year many talents are getting lost. A 17-year-old boy in a country has five times more chances to participate in World Cup than a 16-year-old just because the World Cup happens to be in that particular year. We need to see if we want to play our youth competitions yearly or every two years.

The next area, number five, is linked with the financial regulation. It’s also an important area. The pandemic has shown us all how fragile the football ecosystem is. We have been taking, in the framework of the transfer system, some provisional measures to help but we need to put in place in the transfer reform serious financial control mechanisms. We need them to protect clubs. We need them to protect players. We need them to protect the whole football ecosystem.

We need to have, for the new transfer system, the highest standards of transparency and accountability. We don’t have to shy away from topics such as tighter player agents’ regulations or salary caps of transfer fee caps or transparent calculations mechanisms to see what we are talking about. We need to bring a bit of light in the opacity of all these transfer transactions. Let me show you just one figure in this respect – the figure you can see here on the screen – in the last pre-COVID year, 2019 the global transfer spend for international transfers was around USD 7bn moving from one country to the other. The agent fees, players’ agent fees was around USD 700m and the money which went to training clubs was around USD 70m.

I think these figures are quite telling and I think we can’t be satisfied with them and for this reason, we have put in place a clearing house. A clearing house which will work to make sure that those clubs investing in training are entitled to a training compensation and a solidarity payment will receive the money – with this clearing house everything will be automatic. This means concretely that instead of USD 50m, USD 60m or USD 70m every year, the training clubs will receive every year up $300m which is money which is new to them but which is not paid today. USD 300m per year for training clubs is a lot of money. Of course it is our duty to make sure that this is going to happen.

Similarly, and I would like to thank the stakeholders and the stakeholder committee, we have established a fund for players. I was saying we have to think about fans and players as well. Not only the top players but all the players and we have established a fund of USD 16m which has benefitted more than a thousand players already – a thousand players who have lost their jobs. The lion’s share of this money goes to players in Europe because we need to help those players who do not have the means.

The next area is the Laws of the Game. This is an area for IFAB but FIFA is obviously already, as well, part of that. We need always to foster attacking football and the offside rule is definitely one of these rules that we need to look at. One week after I was elected FIFA President, it was my first IFAB meeting and we decided to scrap the double or triple penalty rule – red card and penalty at the same time and suspension of the player. After 10 years of discussion, in one week we took it away and everyone was happy because this is what football wants. We change a few rules or laws to make the game faster. Now we are looking and testing a possible new offside rule. Why? Because if you look at the history of the offside rule it has been developed in order to foster attacking football so we need to see what we can do.

In addition, VAR has created a situation which maybe was not expected, before VAR it was if in doubt the advantage should be with the attacker, with VAR you don’t have doubts any more. And the term marginal offside has become suddenly and important term and people are saying ‘marginal offside, how can it be?’ And it’s someone’s nose that is offside. We shouldn’t cancel the goal just because the nose is offside but it’s the rule. We have to see if we need to change this rule. So the current rule says: if any part of your body, with which you can score a goal is over the line of the second last defender then it’s offside. We are testing the opposite rule saying that if any part of your body with which you can score a goal is in line with the defender then it’s not offside – to give an advantage of course to the attacking player. One statistic here as well, in the Premier League last season there were four offside situations per game – with this new rule, two out of these offside situations would be onside and maybe a few more goals would have been scored. Of course, we need to see what kind of impact this has on the game which is why we are testing it currently in America and in China and professor Arsène Wenger is supervising this work so we are in safe hands there.

Speaking about the Laws of the Game, let me also say a word about protecting players’ health. We have introduced the five substitutions exactly for this reason and we’ll have to look into that very soon. We have also introduced a concussion substitution. We are starting these questions, we need to be aware of the situation and do whatever we can to protect the players.

Lastly on the Laws of the Game, I’ll just say a word about VAR. We have more than 100 competitions worldwide who use VAR. VAR is definitely bringing more justice and transparency into the game. The margin of error for referees has moved from 95% to 99% - yes there’s still 1% but it’s better than 5%. The big, big decisions or mistakes are corrected and this is a help for referees. It is a help for the justice of the game. We want to help all 211 associations by developing a VAR light. A lighter system of VAR that can still give possibility with less cameras, less infrastructure to help the referees.

Let’s move to the seventh area which is football development and the Forward Programme. This is probably the greatest achievement since 2016 because we have multiplied by five the funds for you. Five times more. We did not increase our revenues by a factor of five, we did not even double our revenues but we were able to increase development monies by 500% in the Forward Programme simply because we do our job seriously. Simple because money does not disappear. This is a sea change in the culture of FIFA. You know, because you are in it that this is also linked to tighter controls on your end, on what you are doing with this money.

Stay tuned because Forward 3.0 is coming very, very soon.

Speaking about football development, we need to go to the eighth area. We go to technical development. The first action here which has already been kicked off is called ‘Give every talent a chance’. Arsène Wenger and his team have gathered data from all member associations. More than 20,000 pages of data and they are elaborating a tailormade concept for each country on how best to operate to give every talent in the country a chance to play. We are looking forward to that.

The second area of technical development is the professionalisation of referees, something we never speak about but we should because there is no football without referees. The referees are our team and we have to protect them always even when they make mistakes. Now, if you are lucky, and you are born in Italy, you can make a living from being a referee but if you are born in 90% of countries in the world this is not the case. We cannot ask somebody who has to work part-time and full-time and in the evening to jog and train a little bit to referee professional players, we need to establish a professionalisation for referees, it is crucial for their protection and their independence because they come under heavy pressure everywhere in the world. We need to work on it and we have already established some pilot projects and we are working on that with some of you.

The ninth area is very important, it’s the social role of football. We need to be aware of our social role and the first point I want to mention here is the zero tolerance on discrimination. This is another virus – racism. And football is sadly not immune from it. Let me be very clear – there is no place for any type of discrimination in football. No place. We are all equal. If somebody thinks that they can come to football and discriminate others then my message is clear as well: you’ll go out. We will continue to educate but we will also sanction very harshly because it is intolerable. We can also though use football to improve society and to cast positive examples. I have been meeting in the last years some senior political figures who have achieve some results by pushing boundaries. For example, on women’s rights in some countries or on labour law reforms in other countries.

This brings me to the human rights situation. In the recent World Cup qualifiers some footballers have been taking to the field to raise human rights concerns and workers’ rights. I can tell you that since 2016 this is a top priority for us. We have achieved some progress.

We know that there are challenges and we know that more can be done but any discussion on this matter should be based on verified facts. As is confirmed by Transparency International, not FIFA, by the ILO (International Labour Organisation), not by FIFA, by the BWI (Building and Woodworkers International), labour unions, not by FIFA. Significant progress has been made. It’s clear as well that FIFA’s doors are always open, always open to discuss or debate and I can tell you that the FIFA World Cup in Qatar next year will not only be the greatest tournament ever but it will also leave a lasting and positive social legacy in the country and also in the entire region. Of course, some criticise what we do and I’m sure that their concerns are genuine and also legitimate but again I invite you all to consider the facts first and then form your own opinion on whether football has made or not made a positive difference because I believe it has.

Let’s speak about child protection as well when we speak about the social role of football. It is important that our children can play football in a safe and secure environment. What worse crime can we think about than abusing a child? Difficult to think of something worse yet this happens in society and it happens as well in football and we can’t hide it and we don’t have to hide it. We have to fight it and for this we need an international structure who can help us fight it. We are ready to engage in that with governments and sports institutions because it’s not just about football, it’s about children, boys and girls alike.

The next area, still on the social role of football is climate. Climate also of course a priority for FIFA. In 2016 FIFA has become the first sports organisation to join the UN framework convention on climate change - Climate Neutral Now campaign. In 2018 at the COP in Poland, we committed to reduce carbon emission by 45% by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050 – these are just steps but everything that goes in between these steps such as the fact that we put elements on climate protection as well in our bidding documents like for human rights are important to show that football is much more than just a sport.

Coming back to the sport though we need to look at integrity. If before entering the pitch players have the feeling that the match is rigged or the fans have that feeling then the soul of football is dead. We know that around 50% of the world’s sports betting is invested or played in football. At FIFA we are monitoring 36,000 games a year. 0.4% of these games, around 150, show some suspicious pattern but once we have that what can we do? How can we act? We have established the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), a FIFA Global Integrity programme which involves all of the 211 member associations because we need to work together. We need to work together with law enforcement agencies to tackle match fixing.

Next item is education – very important. Football For Schools project is very close to my heart and to the hearts of many of you. We want to bring football to the schools but not just playing football but educating through football. Football is teaching us so many things, teaching us respect, team spirit and with the excuse of football you can speak about anything, about the situation, about gender equality, about empowerment. We have elaborated a programme together with UNESCO and the World Food Programme to go to 700 million kids all over the world and we are looking for partners to help us in this area. A pan-African schools football tournament which has just been launched is also going in that direction. Education and football together.

Let me say to conclude this part that FIFA has become in the last few years a trustworthy partner. I was telling you some years ago that FIFA was toxic and nobody wanted to come anywhere close to FIFA and it was true. Today we have agreements, working structured agreements with the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Women, UNODC, UNESCO, World Food Programme, African Union, Council of Europe, ASEAN, G20 and very soon with CARICOM and many others. I would like at this stage on behalf of all of you to thank all these organisations for playing together with us on the same team for our children and our society.

The tenth area is of course the fans. Football is the people’s game – we need to remember that. I am a fan as well, I would have preferred to be a player but when you have two left feet and are right-footed it’s a bit complicated so I’m a fan like many of you. Football is the peoples’ game. We had 1.2 billion viewers of the last Women’s World Cup, we had four billion viewers at the last Men’s World Cup so we have over five billion football fans worldwide. Each one of these football fans is a fan of what? A fan first of his or her national team, then a local club – a club where they’ve grown up and then they are a fan of a big global club and sometimes in recent days as well of some individual players. Now I firmly believe that it is our task and our job to work in order to give each of these 5bn fans something with which they can live their passion. We don’t only have to look at one, two or three, we have to look at everything, at making football truly global.

The last area, number 11, is digital. Why digital? We have just seen with the figures that football has uniquely the ability to connect the entire world. Recently technology is also enhanced and has the possibility to connect the world as well is another way. So if we can somehow join the global appeal of football and the new opportunities that digital technology offers, we can achieve great things. We can make our sport more popular, we can democratise it more and we will involve all 211 member associations to be part of a new digital FIFA venture – stay tuned and you will hear from us very soon.

So these are the 11 areas for action. There is a lot on the plate but there is also a lot of energy and motivation and enthusiasm to tackle each and every one of these areas from top to bottom. Let me conclude by saying that, as you have seen, we have very clear objectives for the year ahead. We want to make football truly global. We want to do that together because we need you, the FIFA 211 member associations, we need you all to speak up, we need you all to tell us what you think, what you want and how we can make football globally better. Together, dear friends, we will shape the future of football. This is the time.

Gianni