FIFA fury as it refuses to back down on calendar in face of FIFPRO and WLA’s legal threat

May 13 – FIFA have responded furiously to threats by world players union FIFPRO and the World Leagues Association (WLA) that they and their members will take legal action over the ‘imposition’ of the international match calendar, and in particular the staging of 2025 Club World Cup.

FIFA’s lack of consultation over key issues that materially affect the members of both organisations has long been a complaint of both stakeholders.

FIFPRO and the WLA want the Club World Cup withdrawn from the international match calendar with immediate effect, or they will take legal action.

What makes their current threat most worrying for FIFA is that there is a steel resolve in both FIFPRO and the WLA to take FIFA to court. Unlike its other stakeholder groups, FIFA is in what is for them the unusual and uncomfortable position of having no significant leverage to bring to bear over FIFPRO or the WLA to prevent this happening.

What is more, any legal action would likely widen the divide between FIFA and the two stakeholder bodies to the detriment of FIFA’s competitions.

FIFPRO control the players who FIFA needs to make their competitions – an in particular the World Cup money spinner – meaningful, while the leagues generate the revenues that feed the professional game and players worldwide. FIFA provides no meaningful funding for the professional game directly, indeed as a unified body the leagues massively outweigh FIFA’s revenue, match organisation and local impact on the game.

Coming just five days before the FIFA Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, the dispute casts a huge shadow over the world governing body and its abilities to deliver a calendar. As well as a deeper question over its ability to effectively govern the world’s biggest sport.

In a letter to the World Leagues Association (WLA) and FIFPRO, Mattias Grafstrom, general secretary of world football’s governing body said that FIFA “reject any suggestion or inference that FIFA somehow…

Source link : https://www.insideworldfootball.com/2024/05/13/fifa-fury-refuses-back-calendar-face-fifpro-wlas-legal-threat/

Author : Paul Nicholson

Publish date : 2024-05-13 08:41:48

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