FIFA the World Football's Governing Body
Governance and corporate social responsibility strategies in the football business have developed over the years, however, keeping these updated has not always occurred. Changes have happened but through necessity due to a range of bad governance decisions. Obada et al tell us that corporate social responsibility and corporate governance are not the same, “they are interconnected in achieving similar goals”.
FIFA the world football governing body has a huge role to play in society and therefore adherence to good governance principles is fundamental for the fulfillment of FIFA’s statutory objectives and broader social mission. Modifications to the principles of good governance were introduced to provide improvements and better accountability. However, it could be argued that they were not transparent enough as in 2011 an independent governance committee was established as a temporary forum to supervise the formation and conception of a framework of good governance and controls which damaged FIFA's reputation. This was in the wake of scandals and allegations of bribery and corruption, which related to the bidding and award process of various World Cups. Governance reform over the years is said to have been a step in the right direction but with still has a way to go. A broad approach to reassessing its standards of governance was undertaken by FIFA in 2016 allowing them to refocus through a comprehensive improvement made to its administrative structure where controls were split and roles more clearly defined.
Whilst FIFA has the dominant position of control over the regulation and organization of football, UEFA is the European football governing body and they manage and regulate competitions within its domain. That said UEFA has a role in governance by electing representatives to FIFA.
UEFA has continued to develop and apply governance to be adopted at the national level. In 2018, they set out a group of ten governance principles and management rules which they decided could be used to enhance good governance.
Associated with the day-to-day running of the business the new principles are said to be wide-ranging and comprehensive, enough to cover the wide range of a football association’s activities and operations. In doing so this would give them a clear, transparent business strategy with measurable objectives, reviewed on a regular basis making each organization’s management and committees fully accountable for their actions. A specific need was highlighted around transparency in financial matters. This was why UEFA to introduced the Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFP) in 2009 to try and prevent professional football clubs from having more outgoings than income, whilst chasing success and in doing so getting into financial problems which might threaten their long-term survival. Frank expressed a view that this was done with some criticism to the effect that “it restricts competition in the transfer market and by creating a sort of barrier to entry”. Sanctions from breaching the FFP rules could result in fines, bans, points deducted, and restrictions of registering players.
The Football Association (The FA) is England’s national governing body for football. It has the responsibility for controlling the game of at both professional and amateur levels and provides sanctions for all competitive matches. Despite this, a review was made by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, where they established a need for change in football governance and proposed a new model which also included a reorganization of the FA. In doing this it would mean that it could conduct its responsibilities more effectively and be ready for the future challenges of the game. Within the requirements, it was deemed that there needed to be more robust ownership rules, which were to include a strong fit and proper person test. This relates to UEFA’s concern about clubs getting into financial difficulty. This was to be the key component of a licensing model and was to be constantly driven throughout the professional game with the FA having a supervisory role. The committee expressed an opinion that the football association should introduce the model rather than the governments need to issue the changes through legislation. The report concluded that it is not for the government to run any kind of sport including football saying that “Sports are best governed by modern, transparent, accountable and representative national governing bodies, which are able to act decisively in the long-term interests of the sport”.
The FA has adopted FIFA Regulation on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP). Introduced in 2001 RSTP is a piece of governance that has developed and modified over time states the global rules and regulations incorporating various standards that relate to all players including minors from registration, transferring between clubs, training compensation, and other jurisdictions.
According to Kott, it is said that up until more recent times corporate social responsibility issues did not play a significant role in sport. Although Garriga et al argue that the evolution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has diversified and developed further with most notably on a conceptual basis. That said professional sports bodies have adopted corporate social responsibility initiatives at a rapid pace. They have comprehended how they can potentially use this for their own organizations, alongside the awareness of being exclusively positioned to affect and inspire communities has played a role.
FIFA became the first sports organization to look at corporate social responsibility in 2005. According to Sadecky, FIFA’s CSR journey is said to have started with the signing of a partnership agreement with the United Nations. The aim was to use football as a tool to create opportunities for members of opposing sides in conflicts “to learn and bond with each other on a neutral and unifying subject” Part of FIFA’s reforming its governance structure was the improvement of the organization’s corporate social responsibility program. Arguably, this was achieved and most notably through the introduction and execution of a new Human Rights framework. In recent years, world football’s governing body has further strengthened its commitment to building a better future by defining a social responsibility strategy and setting up a Corporate Social Responsibility Department. Woods et al determine that FIFA began implementing corporate social responsibility initiatives to generate positive effects while lessening negative perceptions.
In comparison, the European Commission defines corporate social responsibility as a “concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis” UEFA state that they want to “Create positive social impact through football”. They hope to achieve this by using the following strategic themes to express its involvement to its action on sustainable development. The themes developed include Diversity & Inclusion, Environment, Health & well-being, Peace & reconciliation, Solidarity, Human rights, Child safeguarding, and Supporter relations.
#EqualGame was launched by UEFA during 2017/8 alongside the Respect project endorsing access, diversity, and inclusion. According to UEFA, the platform is being used to “highlight the principle that football is for everyone, regardless of who they are, where they are from, or how they play the game”. In comparison and more recently there has been a more in-depth focus on this as football has embraced the black lives matter campaign which set about stamping all racism out of the game by taking of the knee before kick-off.
On a national level, the FA’s corporate responsibility program is concerned with making sure that they continue to meet their responsibilities beyond the parameters of the game. Their continued pledge and motivation is to their environment and that of the English clubs, ethical, charitable, and community activities. Nevertheless, research undertaken by Breitbarth et al contends that the professional football clubs under the jurisdiction of the FA understand the significance and importance to ensure that corporate social responsibility is included in their management and governance processes. It follows that for the FA to reach its vision that football must be open and accessible for all and that they will need to ensure everyone’s voice is heard, that everyone has the right community facilities to play, and they meet their diversity target within their corporate responsibility program.
Examples and relevant cases supporting arguments
Conversely, even with good governance and corporate social responsibility in place, this does not mean that there have not been any incidents and indeed legal cases. If we look at some recent examples it confirms that the need for continued and developing governance needs to be in place and regularly updated.
This not only applies to football organizations or clubs as in 2015 some of the large multinational companies who are sponsors of the FIFA football governing body were not only concerned but threatened to end sponsorship finding their name and products associated with the ever-growing tainted FIFA brand. This was after stories of arrests and allegations of 'rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted corruption'.
FIFA also came under fire for the allegations of bribery regarding the allocation of the 2018 world cup to Russia and the 2022 works cup to Qatar. Reports from Sky Sports explain that allegations were made in relation to Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago, who at the time was president of the North and Central American and Caribbean governing body CONCACAF, that he received $5m (£4.1m) in bribes to vote for Russia's hosting the 2018 competition. Following on from that it is then alleged that representatives of FIFA including former Brazil federation president Ricardo Teixeira were reportedly offered bribes for their votes to ensure that Qatar was picked to host the 2022 competition.
The Qatar world cup has raised further problems with Amnesty International giving criticism by calling it “The world cup of shame” and goes on to state its allegations of the human rights failings concerning the treatment of workers hired to build the infrastructure and it is reported that they are being subjected to forced labor, lower than promised and late wage payments. Workers are unable to leave to go home to the countries where they came from, enduring appalling living conditions and even deaths. FIFA is accused of not taking sufficient action once advised of the going on.
In December 2015 Sepp Blatter was banned from football for eight years in relation to breaches of Fifa’s ethics code. This came after his 17 years as head of football’s world governing body which has condemned all proven previous corruption and is itself pursuing a compensation claim against its accused former officials. The breach included a 'disloyal payment' of £1.35 million made to UEFA president Michel Platini. Platini was the head of UEFA at the time that Blatter headed up FIFA he alleges that the payment made to him was for ‘legitimate consultancy work’. However, the issue raised was that he received the payment in 2011 – which coincided with the re-election of Blatter as FIFA boss in the same year. Also barred from any FIFA activity for his ban was reduced from eight to six years. FIFA confirmed that it would be trying to recover the funds.
More up to date is the scandal concerning the alleged corruption in the allocation of World Cup TV rights. The accused are Former FIFA number two Jerome Valcke and Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi. Valcke was convicted and handed a 120-day suspended sentence and ordered to pay FIFA $2 million in restitution. Al-Khelaifi was acquitted after being accused of inciting Valcke to commit aggravated criminal mismanagement.
In 2020 a 2-year ban given to Manchester City by UEFA was overturned. The original ban and fine of £24.9m were given as they were accused of breaching breached the European governing body's financial fair play, by allegedly overstating sponsorship revenue in its accounts submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016 and also that the club didn’t cooperate in the following investigation. UEFA issued a statement that said that they had “taken note of the decision taken by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reduce the sanction imposed on Manchester City FC by UEFA’s independent Club Financial Control Body for alleged breaches of the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play regulations”.
On a national level, the English football scene has also seen scandal. In 2016 a British paper published an article with the headline 'Football for Sale'. This started an investigation into corruption in English football. Under-cover reporters gave The Daily Telegraph (2016) filmed footage of then England manager Sam Allardyce. He is seen speaking to fictitious Asian businessmen, specifying a workaround on FIFA and Football Association bans on third-party ownership of football players. He then goes on to make insulting remarks concerning former England manager Roy Hodgson and a previous England assistant manager Gary Neville. He then went on to disregard HM Revenue and Customs, by saying that they were the 'most corrupt business in the world', this is after it had previously alleged he caught up in alleged tax fraud schemes. This resulted in Allardyce tendering his resignation (Mcnulty 2016) of England national football team manager after only one game in charge. However, it also included the sacking and suspensions of other English Football League club staff.
Other examples of corruption include people that have failed the fit and proper test introduced by the FA as a set of rules to ensure that anybody who takes over as a director of a football club, or the owner of more than 30% of a club's shares, must pass the test. This is done to protect clubs from people with an unspent criminal conviction involving dishonesty, or who have already run a football club which has been put into administration twice. If you have any of the following you cannot take over a club. Since this was introduced in 2004 there have been some failures including Louis Tomlinson in 2010 who was deemed unfit to run Doncaster City. In 2017. However in contrast the Football League has also been accused of 'failing to execute' its own rules in the demise of Bury earlier in 2019. They were accused of not being robust enough in challenging the takeover of Bury for £1 by Steve Dale in 2018. He failed to provide evidence of funding but also proved evasive when questioned about it. Then in 2020, the premier league is said to be proposing to block the takeover of Newcastle football club by a consortium from Saudi Arabia on the context of they may have failed the fit and proper regarding issues piracy and the illegal streaming of sports in the country.
It was deemed that the FA have been are not being equipped to deal with other offenses such as the match-fixing and betting scandals which according to Brown is “rife”. A former player who after being banned and fined expressed his opinions stating that it is happening in most football changing rooms around the country, he goes on to say “FA is failing to properly deal with the growing problem”.
