Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

Mega-sporting events and human rights: What role can EU sports diplomacy play? - Conference Report – By Thomas Terraz

Editor’s note: Thomas Terraz is a fourth year LL.B. candidate at the International and European Law programme at The Hague University of Applied Sciences with a specialisation in European Law. Currently he is pursuing an internship at the T.M.C. Asser Institute with a focus on International and European Sports Law.

 

1.     Introduction

 On March 05, the T.M.C. Asser Institute hosted ‘Mega-sporting events and human rights: What role can EU sports diplomacy play?’ a Multiplier Sporting Event organized in the framework of a European research project on ‘Promoting a Strategic Approach to EU Sports Diplomacy’. This project funded by the European Commission through its Erasmus+ program aims to help the EU adopt a strategic approach to sports diplomacy and to provide evidence of instances where sport can help amplify EU diplomatic messages and forge better relations with third countries. In particular, Antoine Duval from the Asser Institute is focusing on the role of EU sports diplomacy to strengthen human rights in the context of mega sporting events (MSE) both in Europe and abroad. To this end, he organized the two panels of the day focusing, on the one hand, on the ability of sport governing bodies (SGB) to leverage their diplomatic power to promote human rights, particularly in the context of MSEs and, on the other, on the EU’s role and capacity to strengthened human rights around MSEs. The following report summarizes the main points raised during the discussions. More...

Free Event! Mega-sporting events and human rights: What role can EU sports diplomacy play? - 5 March at the Asser Institute in The Hague

The upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and its links to human rights violations has been the subject of many debates in the media and beyond. In particular, the respect of migrant workers’ labour rights was at the forefront of much public criticisms directed against FIFA. Similarly, past Olympics in Rio, Sochi or Beijing have also been in the limelight for various human rights issues, such as the lack of freedom of the press, systematic discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or forced evictions. These controversies have led sports governing bodies (SGBs) to slowly embrace human rights as an integral part of their core values and policies. Leading to an increased expectation for SGBs to put their (private) diplomatic capital at the service of human rights by using their leverage vis-à-vis host countries of their mega-sporting events (MSEs). In turn, this also raises the question of the need for the EU to accompany this change by putting human rights at the heart of its own sports diplomacy.


Research collective 
This Multiplier Sporting Event, organised in the framework of the transnational project on ‘Promoting a Strategic Approach to EU Sports Diplomacy’ funded by the Erasmus + Programme, aims to trigger discussions on the role of an EU sports diplomacy in strengthening respect for human rights in the context of MSEs both at home and abroad. It will feature two roundtables focused on the one hand on the diplomatic power and capacity of SGBs to fend for human rights during MSEs and on the other on the EU’s integration of human rights considerations linked to MSEs in its own sports diplomacy.


Programme

13:20 – 14:00 – Welcome and opening speech –Antoine Duval (Asser Institute)
14:00 - 15:30 - Panel 1: Leveraging the Diplomatic Power of the Sports Governing Bodies for Human Rights

  • Lucy Amis (Unicef UK/Institute for Human Rights and Business)
  • Guido Battaglia (Centre for Sport and Human Rights)
  • Florian Kirschner (World Players Association/UNI Global Union)
  • Claire Jenkin (University of Hertfordshire)

15:30 – 16:00 - Coffee Break

16:00 - 17:30 - Panel 2: A Human Rights Dimension for the EU’s Sports Diplomacy?

  • Arnout Geeraert (Utrecht University)
  • Agata Dziarnowska (European Commission)
  • Alexandre Mestre (Sport and Citizenship)
  • Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (TBC)

17:30 - Reception

Asser International Sports Law Blog | Stepping Outside the New York Convention - Practical Lessons on the Indirect Enforcement of CAS-Awards in Football Matters - By Etienne Gard

Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

Stepping Outside the New York Convention - Practical Lessons on the Indirect Enforcement of CAS-Awards in Football Matters - By Etienne Gard

Editor’s Note: Etienne Gard graduated from the University of Zurich and from King's College London. He currently manages a project in the field of digitalization with Bratschi Ltd., a major Swiss law firm where he did his traineeship with a focus in international commercial arbitration.

1. Prelude

On the 10th of June, 1958, the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, widely known as the “New York Convention”, was signed in New York by 10 countries.[1] This rather shy figure progressively grew over the decades to now reach 157 signatory countries, turning the New York Convention into the global recognition and enforcement instrument it is today. As V.V. Veeder’s puts it, “One English law lord is said to have said, extra judicially, that the New York Convention is both the Best Thing since sliced bread and also whatever was the Best Thing before sliced bread replaced it as the Best Thing.”[2]

However, among the overall appraisal regarding the New York Convention, some criticisms have been expressed. For instance, some states use their public policy rather as a pretext not to enforce an award than an actual ground for refusal.[3]  A further issue is the recurring bias in favor of local companies.[4] Additionally, recognition and enforcement procedures in application of the New York Convention take place in front of State authorities, for the most part in front of courts of law, according to national proceeding rules. This usually leads to the retaining of a local law firm, the translation of several documents, written submissions and one, if not several hearings. Hence, the efficiency of the New York Convention as a recognition and enforcement mechanism comes to the expense of both money and time of both parties of the arbitral procedure.

In contrast with the field of commercial arbitration, where the New York Convention is often considered the only viable option in order to enforce an award, international football organizations, together with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”), offer an effective enforcement alternative. This article aims at outlining the main features of the indirect enforcement of CAS awards in football matters in light of a recent case.

2.  Facts of the Case

The dispute at hand involved a football club affiliated with the United Arab Emirates Football Association (“UAEFA”) and a player’s agent. The club at hand owed a commission to the agent following the completion of a player’s transfer. The agent ultimately won the case before the CAS and the latter awarded him monetary compensation against the football club.

Shortly thereafter, means of enforcement against the club were sought.

It is widely recognized that the awards rendered by the CAS do qualify as awards under the New York Convention and may thus be subject to the classic enforcement provided therein.[5]

Whilst this is to be welcomed because it offers alternatives to the prevailing party seeking recognition and enforcement of the arbitral award, the following will show that another route exists, which may prove just as effective whilst saving both time and money.

Indeed, though the United Arab Emirates did ratify the New York Convention, the general critics mentioned above also applied in the case at hand. This meant that going down the route of direct enforcement against the UAE-based football club would have had several drawbacks. First, the translation workload in order to comply with the local procedural rules was significant. Second, since the recognition procedure was due to take place in front of national courts, a local law firm would have had to be retained. Finally, there was no clear timeline as to when exactly the due compensation would effectively be paid.

3. The Indirect Enforcement

Luckily, the world of football organizations provides for an alternative path, which proved to be highly effective at hand. Indeed, as a result of the deep-rooted integration of CAS and of its decisions in effectively all organizational layers of national and international football, the New York Convention is not the only global enforcement mechanism available to a prevailing party in that field. Although it requires to take steps outside that Convention and, as a result, of the entire ‘state-supported’ enforcement system, the indirect enforcement described below nonetheless proves to be a viable alternative for parties involved in football-related arbitration.

3.1 The Statutory Basis of Indirect Enforcement

It all starts with art. 15 para. 1 let. f of the FIFA Statutes which stipulates that the statutes of the member associations shall ensure that, inter alia, all relevant stakeholders must agree to recognize the jurisdiction and authority of CAS.[6] Art. 23 para. 1 let. f provides for a similar obligation with regard to the confederations’ statutes.[7]

Pursuant to art. 61 para. 1 of the Statutes of the Asian Football Confederation (“AFC”), to which the UAEFA is a member, the AFC recognizes the CAS to resolve disputes between, inter alia, clubs and intermediaries.[8] Further, according to art. 62 para. 1 of said Statutes, the member associations, among which the UAEFA, shall agree to recognize CAS as an independent judicial authority and to ensure that their members and clubs comply with the decisions passed by CAS. Any violation of these provisions will trigger a sanction on the breaching party, according to art. 62 para. 3 of the AFC Statutes.

Finally, art. 19 para. 4 of the UAEFA Statutes provides that each club, upon application for affiliation, shall provide a declaration whereas it undertakes to accept and implement the decisions rendered by the CAS.[9]

In light of the above, the rules of football organizations put in place a terraced indirect enforcement mechanism regarding CAS awards, whereas each club undertakes to comply with such awards vis-à-vis its home association, each such association being in turn similarly obligated vis-à-vis FIFA and its own Confederation. The latter finally has the duty to ensure that its affiliated associations recognize the authority of CAS, thereby closing the loop.

The broad sanction mechanism at every stage leaves considerable discretionary powers to the competent bodies in order to appropriately pressure the breaching stakeholder, on whichever link in the chain the latter may be, into complying with CAS decisions.

3.2 The Indirect Enforcement Procedure

The FIFA Statutes do not provide for any particular body directly tasked with the enforcement of CAS awards against FIFA’s affiliates and their stakeholders. Nor is there any particular procedure enshrined in the FIFA Statues as to how the indirect enforcement of CAS awards shall take place. In particular, art. 64 FIFA Disciplinary Code only applies to CAS decisions in appeal arbitration proceedings regarding the decisions of FIFA and not to CAS decisions rendered in an ordinary arbitration procedure.[10]

However, art. 45 of the FIFA Statutes does provide that the Member Associations Committee shall deal with relations between FIFA and its member associations as well as the member associations’ compliance with the FIFA Statutes. The same is true at the level of the AFC, whereas art. 54 of its Statutes provide that the Associations Committee shall be responsible for relations between the AFC and its Member Associations as well as Member Association’s compliance with FIFA and AFC Statutes and Regulations.

In other words, both at FIFA and AFC level, a standing committee is responsible for ensuring that the Members comply with the applicable statutes and thus, inter alia, with awards rendered by CAS.

Based on the above, we concluded that in order for the competent FIFA and AFC standing committees to examine the case of a club not complying with a CAS award, they needed to be first convinced that (i) a final and binding CAS award had been rendered against a club affiliated with a member association and that (ii) such club refused to comply with said award. Second, the above-mentioned committees would need to be shown that the national football association has been notified of such occurrence and been asked to take appropriate actions against the club according to its own statutes.

From this point in time onwards, the FIFA and AFC standing committees will have been notified that a member’s association has been asked to remedy a matter of non-compliance of an affiliated club with a CAS award and thus such association is now under a statutory obligation to ensure compliance from the club, as described above, or else may itself be found to have breached the FIFA and/or AFC Statutes and sanctioned accordingly.

4. Epilogue and Conclusion

Shifting the focus back to the case that prompted the idea of this blog, once the route leading to indirect enforcement was mapped, we proceeded with gathering the evidence needed, i.e. that the CAS award was final and binding upon the football club.

Section 193 of the Swiss Private International Law Act – which applies to international CAS proceedings – enables the parties to request an enforceability certificate from the competent state court regarding an award rendered by an international arbitral tribunal with its seat in Switzerland. This document certifies that the award in question is final and that no appeal can be filed against it. In the case of the CAS, the state court competent for the issuance of an enforceability certificate is the Tribunal cantonal, in Lausanne.

Once this certificate was obtained, we filed it together with a copy of the award to the competent national association, the UAEFA, urging the latter in writing to request from the club that it complied with the CAS award, or else the club would be sanctioned. Both the competent standing committees of the FIFA and of the AFC received a copy of that letter.

From this moment onwards, the machinery of the indirect enforcement mechanism was switched on and we knew that leverage existed at every level, up until FIFA, to ensure that each stakeholder, be it the UAEFA or the AFC, pressures its affiliated bodies, and, ultimately, the club, into complying with the CAS award.

In the case at hand, this method proved to be successful. Indeed, as a result of the aforementioned steps, the AFC promptly contacted the UAEFA, requesting this matter to be solved and the football agent received the awarded compensation from the club within a few weeks after the UAEFA, the AFC and the FIFA were notified as described above.

This case shows how operating outside the New York Convention can prove both cost- and time-effective. When used properly, the indirect sanction mechanism put in place by football organizations proves to be a proper alternative to classic enforcement proceedings and shall in any event be considered as a viable option under similar circumstances.


[1] Flannery/Merkin, Arbitration Act 1996, 5th Ed., Oxon, 2014, p. 356.

[2] V.V. Veeder, Is There a Need to Revise the New York Convention - Key note speech, in: ‘The Review of International Arbitration Awards – IAI Forum’, International Arbitration Institute, 2008, p. 183 et sqq., p. 186.

[3] V.V. Veeder, p. 191.

[4] Gaillard, ‘The Urgency of Not Revising the New York Convention’, in: The New York Convention at 50, 2008, p. 689 et seqq., p. 690.

[5] Nafziger/Ross, Handbook on International Sports Law, Edward Elgar 2011, p. 40; Rubno-Sammartano, International Arbitration Law and Practice, 3rd Ed., JurisNet, 2014, p.1709; Nolon, Arbitration and the Olympic Athlete, in: McCann, ‘The Oxford Handbook of American Sports Law’, OUP 2017, p. 444.

[6]Art. 15 para. 1 let. f of the FIFA statutes reads as follows: “Member associations’ statutes must comply with the principles of good governance, and shall in particular contain, at a minimum, provisions relating to the following matters: […] all relevant stakeholders must agree to recognise the jurisdiction and authority of CAS and give priority to arbitration as a means of dispute resolution […].

[7] Art. 23 para. 1 let. f of the FIFA statutes reads as follows: “The confederations’ statutes must comply with the principles of good

governance, and shall in particular contain, at a minimum, provisions relating to the following matters

[8] Art. 61 para 1 of the Asian Football Confederation Statutes reads as follows: “The AFC recognises the independent Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) with headquarters in Lausanne (Switzerland) to resolve disputes between the AFC and the other Confederations, Member Associations, Leagues, Clubs, Players, Officials, Intermediaries and licensed match agents.”

[9] Art 19 para 4 of the UAEFA Statutes reads as follows (tentative translation): “Each applicant should provide the following documents: […] A declaration that it will to accept and implement the resolutions and decisions issued by the Court of Arbitration for sport in Lausanne (CAS).”

[10] Art. 64  para 1 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code  reads as follows (emphasis added): “Anyone who fails to pay another person (such as a player, a coach or a club) or FIFA a sum of money in full or part, even though instructed to do so by a body, a committee or an instance of FIFA or a subsequent CAS appeal decision (financial decision), or anyone who fails to comply with another decision (nonfinancial decision) passed by a body, a committee or an instance of FIFA, or by CAS (subsequent appeal decision): […].”

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Asser International Sports Law Blog | A Reflection on the Second Report of FIFA’s Human Rights Advisory Board - By Daniela Heerdt (Tilburg University)

Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

A Reflection on the Second Report of FIFA’s Human Rights Advisory Board - By Daniela Heerdt (Tilburg University)

Editor's note: Daniela Heerdt is a PhD candidate at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands and works as Research Officer for the Centre for Sports and Human Rights. Her PhD research deals with the establishment of responsibility and accountability for adverse human rights impacts of mega-sporting events, with a focus on FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games. She published an article in the International Sports Law Journal that discusses to what extent the revised bidding and hosting regulations by FIFA, the IOC and UEFA strengthen access to remedy for mega-sporting events-related human rights violations.

 

On November 26th, the Human Rights Advisory Board[1] of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) published its second report. This blog provides a summary and brief evaluation of the report, by drawing a comparison to the previous report issued by the Human Rights Advisory Board (hereinafter: the Board) based on the content of the recommendations and FIFA’s efforts to implement the Board’s recommendations. The third part of this blog briefly reflects on the broader implications of some of the new recommendations issued for FIFA’s internal policies. The conclusion provides five more general points of observation on the report.


Old and New Recommendations

In its second report, the Board makes 30 ‘specific recommendations’ to FIFA, just slightly less than the previous one. However, not all of these recommendations are new to FIFA. A number of them have been released in the two update statements the Board released since the publication of its first report, one in May 2018 and one in October 2018. Two more sets of recommendations were communicated to FIFA in December 2017 and February 2018, which are as well included in this new report, but which have not been reported publicly before.

Content-wise, most of the recommendations still deal with the human rights risks associated with FIFA’s upcoming and past events. The recommendations made with regard to the human rights issues surrounding the 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia have been issued in December 2017 and concern the general situation and human rights of construction workers, human rights defenders and media representatives, mostly recommending that FIFA should use its leverage to address these issues with the government or other relevant stakeholders, such as the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). Another December-recommendation concerned the sharing of measures taken by FIFA to investigate the involvement of Russia football players in the Russian doping scandal. Furthermore, the report includes the Board’s recommendations regarding the controversies surrounding the choice of accommodation of the Egyptian national team[2], which had been addressed in a set of recommendations initially issued in February 2018[AD1] . With regard to the human rights requirements for hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the report repeats the recommendation issued in May 2018, concerning FIFA’s task to take into account the capacity of bidders to assess and manage human rights risks when deciding for a host. On this issue, the report also introduces a new recommendation for FIFA to reflect on the inclusion of human rights into the bidding requirements. Furthermore, the report also includes ‘interim recommendations’ in relation to the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, and disclosed that a more detailed set of recommendations can be expected shortly.[3]

While these issues were already present in the first report, four new issues have been added in this second report by the Board:

  • player’s rights,
  • child safeguarding,
  • the ban on woman attending sport matches in Iran,
  • and FIFA’s approach to engagement and communication on human rights.[4]

With regard to player’s rights, the Board’s recommendations focus on access to remedy and FIFA’s evaluation of existing football arbitration mechanisms from a human rights perspective, the rules of the employment market for players and FIFA’s review of these rules, and on FIFA’s regulations on player’s rights which need to take the specific situation of children into account. Concerning child safeguarding, the Board recommends that FIFA’s safeguarding working group should conduct a comprehensive stakeholder consultation to identify the responsibilities of member associations concerning child players. Regarding the issue of discrimination against women in Iran, the Board recommends for FIFA to use its leverage on the Iranian Association and to issue sanctions if nothing is changing. Finally, on FIFA’s approach to engagement and communication on human rights issues, the Board recommends that FIFA establishes a systematic annual dialogue with key stakeholders, in addition to individual and event-specific stakeholder engagement and that it adopts a transparent approach on negative impacts connected to FIFA’s activities. Furthermore, the Board calls on FIFA to communicate this approach and share relevant information with confederations and member associations.

What also changed in the second report is that the Board does not issue requests to FIFA anymore. All measures proposed are formulated as recommendations. However, it is questionable to what extent the requests entailed in the first report really made a difference, since the majority of these requests were merely inquiries for more information or clarifications on certain issues.[5] Such requests about additional information or more transparency on certain issues are now included in the recommendations, such as in recommendation R42, asking FIFA to “be as transparent as possible” and to “proactively publish the steps it has taken”.[6] 


The New Tracking System

The second report of FIFA’s Human Rights Advisory Board is not only longer in terms of page numbers  but it also provides more detailed insights into human rights-related efforts FIFA undertook in the past year and continues to undertake, based on the recommendations it received. While in the first report, ‘part B’ consisted of a general overview of FIFA’s human rights efforts up to that point in time, ‘part B’ in the new report lists concrete measures taken by FIFA in reaction to the recommendations issued by the Board in its first report and other recommendations statements made in the past year. To assess these measures, the second report introduces a tracking system, which ranks the status of FIFA’s implementation of the Board’s recommendations from 1 to 4, moving from no implementation (1), to ongoing implementation (2), to advanced implementation (3), and to full or “closed out” implementation (4).[7]

There is only one recommendation for which implementation has not yet started (category 1) according to the Board. This concerns the promotion of a policy with host countries of direct employment of construction workers to prevent the strong reliance on subcontractors, which involves greater risks for workers and migrant workers in particular.[8] Ongoing implementation (category 2) has been observed in relation to the embedding of human rights throughout the FIFA organisation, including relevant committees and key staff, as well as its member associations, the testing of the method of risk identification with informed stakeholders to confirm or challenge findings, and the joint inspections together with LOCs. Furthermore, the Board assessed that implementation is ongoing for three other recommendations: first, FIFA’s considerations on how it can make the most efficient use of its leverage when it comes to the issue of security arrangements linked to hosting a FIFA event; secondly, the publishing of information on the design, operation, and the results of the monitoring of construction sites; and thirdly, making prompt and factual statements to show awareness and knowledge about critical human rights issues when they arise. The Board found that FIFA made considerable advancement (category 3) in developing a system for risk identification,  such as monitoring systems or the detailed human rights salience analysis that is part of the Sustainability Strategy and policy of the 2022 World Cup, as well as in identifying risks to fundamental civil and political rights and communicating its expectation to respect these rights with host governments.

The adoption of a human rights policy has been assessed as fully implemented (category 4). The same evaluation has been made in relation to the recommendations for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup tournaments, as well as for the bidding processes and the 2026 FIFA World Cup. However, even though the implementation efforts concerning these issues have been evaluated under the same category, taking a closer look reveals that the actual status of implementation is not the same. This is because category 4 combines two criteria, which in fact reflect very different results. ‘Full implementation’ does not necessarily reflect the same situation as ‘closed out implementation’. In other words, a reason for an implementation to end (‘close out’) is not necessarily linked to the fact that the recommended measure has been implemented in its entirety. In fact, full implementation of a certain measure can produce a completely different scenario than abandoning a certain recommendation or measure.

This can be illustrated by taking a closer look at the implementation of measures recommended to FIFA concerning the handling of human rights issues related to the 2018 World Cup. Most of them have been assessed as fully implemented or closed out, and so have the measures taken in relation to the 2022 World Cup. In reality, however, the 2018 World Cup lies in the past and the majority of measures taken in that context were discontinued before they could fully be implemented. For example, the recommendation on offering the Egyptian team an alternative location, including the financial support needed, has been evaluated as ‘closed out’, even though the Egyptian team in the end decided to stick with Grozny. The same can be said about the recommendation that FIFA should raise with the LOC that timely compensation is provided in case a worker on the World Cup construction sites got injured. Even though FIFA states that they did not have access to any financial records that would allow a verification of cash flows, the recommendation has been evaluated as “implemented/closed out”.[9] Due to this combination of two criteria under category 4, simply taking a look at the tabular overview provided at the end of the report[10] can create a distorted picture of the actual implementation status of the Board’s recommendations. Instead, a more careful look at FIFA’s actual efforts on certain issues is necessary to fully understand whether FIFA was indeed successful in implementing a certain recommendation, or whether it just dropped the implementation, for instance because it was linked to a certain event that is over now. 


The Implications for FIFA’s Internal Policies

Some of the recommendations included in the report relate to how FIFA embeds its human rights commitments internally and within its member associations. For instance, according to the Board FIFA should discuss with the Board the reasons for the decision of the Ethics Committee to not publish a detailed explanation of how it reached a decision in a case, and that it should review its operations in that regard.[11] In addition, it recommends FIFA to be explicit with its member associations on what it expects and in what timeframe it expects them to align with FIFA’s human rights responsibilities. The Board also implies that anticipated sanctions should be included in FIFA Statutes, the Disciplinary Code and the Ethics Code.[12]

Furthermore, the update statement by FIFA in this second report reveals that a number of measures were taken in relation to embedding human rights in its organization, based on previous recommendations made by the Board.  For instance, FIFA Council and Committee members have to follow an e-learning course, which includes a human rights module, and a human rights working group has been established within FIFA’s Governance Committee. However, implementation on those matters is ongoing and it becomes clear that this so far has not been the focus of FIFA’s human rights-related efforts and more could be done in that regard.[13] The context and overview FIFA provides on embedding the respect for human rights is rather vague and the measures taken so far do not reach the entire FIFA organization.[14]


Conclusion

A number of general observations can be made based on this summary and comparison. First, most recommendations and action taken by FIFA seem to concentrate on FIFA’s commitment to identify and address human rights risks, which actually was already the case in the first report. Secondly, while FIFA’s events still seem to be a priority, the Board focused also on new issues. Yet, perhaps not enough attention is dedicated to changing FIFA’s international structures and culture into a well-established acceptance and reflection of FIFA’s human rights responsibilities. Furthermore, the report provides valuable and detailed insight into the progress made and how it is made, for instance in relation to FIFA’s leverage over Qatar’s Supreme Committee and the Qatari government to change certain regulations, the human rights defender cases in which FIFA intervened, or the external partners FIFA worked with to address certain human rights risks.[15] Finally, it is a comprehensive report, reflecting the Board’s understanding towards FIFA’s burden of having to address issues of “the past, present and future all at once”, and the fact that “FIFA has to deal with the legacy of decisions taken and contracts signed before the organisation recognized its human rights responsibilities”.[16] This also shows that FIFA takes the Board seriously and in many ways follows the Board’s recommendations.

In general, the fact that FIFA has an active Human Rights Advisory Board in place for more than a year now and renewed its mandate until the end of 2020 should be applauded.[17] Just this month, the International Olympic Committee announced that it is also setting up a Human Rights Advisory Committee, which is supposed to be fully operational by the 2024 Olympic Games, unfortunately not in time for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.



[1] The members of the board are listed in the annex of the first report.

[2] Egypt’s national team chose Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, as its training camp during the World Cup 2018. FIFA authorized this choice, despite the fact that the region’s human rights record is dominated by cases of extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances and the Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, is known for his repression of journalists, critics, minority groups, and human rights defenders.  

[3] See p.19 of the second report

[4] Ibid., p 20

[5] See p. 5, 7, or 11 of the first report

[6] See p. 15 of the second report

[7] See p. 5 of the second report

[8] See p. 60 of the second report

[9] See p. 48 of the second report

[10] Ibid. p. 80 ff.

[11] Ibid. p. 27

[12] Ibid. p. 25

[13] Ibid. p. 34 f.

[14] Ibid. p. 33 & 35

[15] Ibid. pp. 17-18, 67, & 69

[16] Ibid. p. 28

[17] Ibid. p. 79


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