The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) have said that football belongs to no individual and no institution.

The organisations stated that the sport is rather owned by the players, the fans, the clubs, the Member Associations and every institution entrusted with safeguarding its future.

This was disclosed in an open letter signed by Saliman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa (AFC President), Victor Montagliani (Concacaf President), Aleksander Ceferin (UEFA President), Datuk Seri Windsor John (AFC General Secretary), Philippe Moggio (Concacaf General Secretary), and Theodore Theodoridis (UEFA General Secretary).

The organisations pointed out that the growth of football over the past decade was never the work of one individual but the product of FIFA, the Confederations, the Member Associations, and the thousands of people who dedicate their lives to the game.

They said the expanded tournaments, the awarding of the 2030 and 2034 FIFA World Cups, and the distribution of resources to associations were shared achievements, agreed together, delivered together.

“This is not about money. The Confederations have already called for the responsible distribution of FIFA’s vast existing reserves to further strengthen investment in the development of Member Associations.

“Nor is it about any Member Association losing the support it has earned, despite the fearmongering directed at our membership to suggest otherwise. Nor is it about revisiting the expansion of competitions, World Cup allocations, or any other decisions reached collectively. Those decisions were made together, and they must stand.

“This is about something more fundamental: the integrity of the game, and the integrity of those elected to lead it,” they said, in the letter signed by the heads of the organisations.

They reminded the public that leadership in football is not a possession and not about holding – or demanding – power to be held, but a duty of service to the football family that entrusts it.

They said when trust is broken through deception, when an individual places himself above the collective that entrusted him with authority, that duty has been abandoned.

The organisations highlighted that FIFA’s recent letter to its Vice-Presidents and 211 Member Associations acknowledges that mistakes were made in the FIFA Forward Enterprise (“FFE”) process. They lamented that the letter treats the situation as a failure of communication, when what football witnessed was a failure of judgment. “A proposal advanced on a compressed timeline, without meaningful consultation, and pushed toward a deadline before Member Associations could properly review its terms is not the product of an oversight — it is the product of a design intended to limit scrutiny,” they said.

“It did not acknowledge that the proposal itself was inherently wrong. There remains no recognition that attempting to sell an interest in the FIFA World Cup was a profound failure of judgment — not just a procedural misstep, but a fundamental breach of trust with the very institutions FIFA exists to serve.”

They lamented that FIFA has also committed to presenting a full report on these events to the FIFA Council, while failing to recognise that proper governance in the face of such a profound lack of judgment would require that such a review be conducted by a fully independent third party, not by FIFA itself, its staff, or by any stakeholder within football. “The FIFA administration should play no role in conducting the review,” they said.

“As per previous correspondence, all relevant documents and records must be preserved in accordance with UEFA’s communication on preservation of documents.

“FIFA’s own letter also confirms that only one elected official was present at the leadership meeting in Morocco. No FIFA Council members or Member Associations were invited to participate. Only the management committee, composed of FIFA-employed senior staff, was present.

“This recent meeting, where a select number of members of the FIFA Management Committee—not the full Committee—were summoned abroad, rather than leadership going to Zurich to address the heart of FIFA, its staff, only reinforces these concerns and represents a continuation of the very pattern of conduct that brought us to this moment. It is not the conduct of a custodian of the game, but of one who believes the game is answerable to him.

“There is silence where there should be accountability, distance where there should be openness.

“These are not the qualities football deserves in its leadership. That is why we have taken this stance: not lightly and not alone, but together, and out of duty to the game we serve.

“Football’s strength has always been its unity. We call for that unity to be honoured now, for leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it,” the organisations said. (Guardian)

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