FIFA's Non-Interference Clause vs. National Sovereignty

To preserve institutional homogeneity, FIFA, the world's preeminent soccer governing body, repeatedly intervenes in member nations' domestic political affairs, pressuring federations not to appoint delegates to FIFA's General Assembly whose positions conflict with the governing body's agenda.

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The FIFA Congress

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) functions similarly to a state’s federal government: FIFA’s Congress has legislative authority over all of its 211 member nations’ domestic leagues and tournaments, passing statutes and dictating a code of conduct, which allows the organization to control global soccer policy.² Each member nation (federation) sends one delegate to guide this policy, deciding issues concerning which nations will host upcoming tournaments, how to organize the football calendar, and how to distribute grassroots development grants to its federations.³ This system naturally fosters the formation of voting blocs based on geography and ideology. Certain FIFA leadership officials have infamously been caught using illegal bullying and bribing methods to ensure certain voting blocs support the current administration’s agenda.⁴ In exchange, FIFA’s corrupt officials ignored corrupt federations’ “incidents of mismanagement and corruption,” going so far as to “award financial grants” to compliant federations while noncompliant federations receive[d] poorer treatment.⁵

The United States government worked with international investigators on taking these corrupt officials down by first indicting key personnel representing Trinidad and Tobago’s football association for allegations of wire fraud and other fraud related claims.⁶ Once these charges were filed, the U.S. government used these smaller fraud claims to open RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) charges against FIFA officials and executives to investigate the governing body’s corrupt practices.⁷ Despite the shake-down, FIFA’s current leadership still uses strong-arming tactics such as the Non-Interference Clause (NIC) to ensure delegates conform to the leadership’s political agenda items (e.g., hosting the lucrative World Cup in authoritarian nations; saturating the football calendar with more games to collect greater television and sponsorship revenue without consulting player unions; expanding the number of teams in the World Cup and Club World Cup), thus interfering in member nations’ legal procedures and constraining nations’ autonomy in making decisions that affect domestic affairs.⁸

The Non-Interference Clause in Concept and Practice

The NIC stems from Article 15 of FIFA’s Statutes and Article 2 of FIFA’s Standard Electoral Code and is meant to prevent authoritarian governments from taking over football governance.⁹ These statutes prohibit federations from allowing national courts of law to manage domestic soccer-related affairs, especially in the federations’ electoral processes. Instead, the statutes mandate that the main source of authority must come from FIFA’s courts, which abide by the rules of the Court for Arbitration and Sport (CAS).¹⁰ FIFA adopts a strict approach as to what constitutes “outside political influence,” using the term loosely to prevent federations from making decisions that do not comply with FIFA’s plans.¹¹

There have been instances in which FIFA attempted to use the NIC for good. For example, over the past few decades, mastering Iranian politics meant using domestic soccer competition as a popularity booster.¹² FIFA tried to limit then-President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad from using the Iranian national team to gain political approval, though many commentators say FIFA’s attempts were highly ineffectual.¹³ More often, however, FIFA uses the NIC to protect corrupt delegates – which coincidentally play a pivotal role in key FIFA Congress votes – when national governments attempt to remove the delegates from positions of power via the nations’ domestic court systems.¹⁴

FIFA typically enforces the NIC in the following manner. First, a nation’s court removes the corrupt delegate from their government or soccer federation position. Next, FIFA invokes the NIC and suspends the federation’s grants and participation in FIFA’s tournaments, which the federation relies on financially to operate, until the nation reinstates the corrupt official as the federation delegate. Ultimately, the nation complies.¹⁵ When a nation tries to appoint a new federation leader, FIFA often upholds the suspension until the nation eventually elects to reinstate the corrupt delegate.¹⁶Since January 2024, FIFA has invoked the NIC in matters concerning India,¹⁷ Pakistan,¹⁸ Kenya,¹⁹ and the Republic of the Congo.²⁰

Looking Forward

FIFA misuses the NIC to shield corrupt officials, to override nations’ legal systems, and to coerce federations into complicity, effectively violating member federations’ sovereignty. Recent developments, however, suggest that change may be on the horizon. In October 2024, FIFA was compelled to change its statutes after the European Court of Justice(ECJ) ruled some of FIFA’s governing international transfer rules violated the EU’s freedom of workers’ movement and competition law.²¹ The case started in FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Court, proceeded to CAS, and was ultimately resolved in the Belgian and European courts.²² Beyond representing an important correction to the inequitable balance of power between clubs and players in transfers, this case illustrates that FIFA’s/CAS’s authority is no longer absolute; national and regional courts can override FIFA’s regulatory framework by cooperating with local governments, as well as with firms and legal organizations, geared towards remedying soccer’s exploitative activities. These courts also have the power to compel FIFA to amend its statutes to promote a fairer soccer governance system. If national courts, regional bodies, and athletes’ unions collaborate, FIFA’s hegemonic governance over its member federations and historical insulation from external legal checks may no longer be sustainable.

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^[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulkagame/52751045559/in/photolist-2onqU2v-b4rvY6-2onrqwV-nJCLRa-nDXzeq-nUSxVA-2bmK2Aa-obwEtZ-2mwJBuA-2onmAmm-2onqSnU-2onjUmT-2onpCR4-nRY5iE-nXPGLa-2dRNVad-odhcpL-ZfYg95-2mwPnoU-2mx2gdM-oVod6F-2cQqj1W-s6hpC3-2dRNWJW-2cxDGzR-2onmAf9-s3A1Rh-nPEmKa-nT5g8W-o1xSdm-2jawZ33-rz6epz-2onsa9S-2mwKSVv-kNsYw2-nTkGSA-nNYEPA-nr726Z-sbTt1V-2onn2b9-2be977M-2n9cLvL-2onmVAy-2ongV9B-oV6HZP-2onpEys-oE9zNF-2onsc5F-2onqUPx-oa6uzq.

^[2] Daniel Wilken, The FIFA Legal Monopoly: Can FIFA be Fixed? (Apr. 20, 2022), https://studentbriefs.law.gwu.edu/ilpb/2022/04/20/the-fifa-legal-monopoly-can-fifa-be-fixed/.

^[3] FIFA Statutes art. 15 (c); 23(cc) 58 (2-3).

^[4] Ilias Bantekas, FIFA's One Association-One Vote Rule: Does Democratic Governance Ensure Its "Corporate" Integrity?, 14 Am. U. Bus. L. Rev. 53, 72 (2024).

^[5] J. G. Hylton, How FIFA Used the Principle of Autonomy of Sport to Shield Corruption in the Sepp Blatter Era, 32 Md. J. Int'l L. 134, 137 (2017); Roger Pielke, ‘How Can FIFA Be Held Accountable?’, 16 Sport Mgmt. Rev. 255, 258 (2013), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2012.12.007.

^[6] Information, United States v. Warner, No. 13-402 (E.D.N.Y. May 27, 2015); Information, United States v. Warner, No. 13-584 (E.D.N.Y. May 27, 2013); Information, United States v. Blazer, No. 13-602 (RJD) (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 25, 2013); See also Ken Bensinger, RED CARD 87 (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2018) (describing the plan to gain access to FIFA’s corrupt officials by bringing RICO charges against American-based FIFA officials, thus opening the Federation up to further investigations).

^[7] Press Release, U.S. Dep’t of Just., Nine FIFA Officials and Five Corporate Executives Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy and Corruption (May 27, 2015), https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and; United States v. Hawilla, No. 14-609 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 12, 2014); United States v. Traffic Sports Int’l, Inc., No. 14-609 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 12, 2014);  United States v. Traffic Sports USA, Inc., No. 14-609 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 12, 2014); United States v. Webb, No. 15-252 (E.D.N.Y. May 20, 2015).

^[8] Walid Khan, The FIFA Rule of Non‑Interference: How It Contributes to Corruption and How It Contravenes Kenyan Law (Jan. 2017) (LL.B. dissertation, Strathmore University Law School), at 3 https://su-plus.strathmore.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/d36a8c8b-d8b1-4f19-8022-c1798d3eff00/content; Manase Chiweshe, The Problem with African Football Corruption and the Underdevelopment of the Game on the Continent, African Sports Law and Business Bulletin, 27, 29  (Jan. 2015), https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Manase-Chiweshe-2/publication/282249846_THE_PROBLEM_WITH_AFRICAN_FOOTBALL_CORRUPTION_AND_THE_UNDERDEVELOPMENT_OF_THE_GAME_ON_THE_CONTINENT/links/560951ce08ae840a08d3943a/THE-PROBLEM-WITH-AFRICAN-FOOTBALL-CORRUPTION-AND-THE-UNDERDEVELOPMENT-OF-THE-GAME-ON-THE-CONTINENT.pdf.

^[9] FIFA, Statutes art. 15(c) (May 2022). FIFA, Standard Electoral Code art. 2, § 2 (2022), https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/8222fe0e3964060/original/FIFA-LEGAL-HANDBOOK-EDITION-SEPTEMBER-2022.pdf ; J. G. Hylton, supra note 4 at 258.

^[10] FIFA Statutes art. 15 (c); 19 (a-c); 23(cc) 51 (2-3); 56.

^[11] Walid Khan, supra note 7, at 46.

^[12] James M. Dorsey, Soccer: A Middle East and North African Battlefield, SSRN (Nov. 6, 2012), at 24, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1955513 (All but two of Iran’s top clubs are funded by state industries; fans rally behind the clubs that represent the opposite political ideologies as authoritarian leaders, etc.)

^[13] James M. Dorsey, supra note 11, at 25 (describing Iran’s persistent government interference in football governance despite FIFA’s non-interference mandate, including then-President Ahmadinejad’s manipulation of federation elections, political retaliation against players and coaches, and the use of football as both a tool of state image-making and a venue for public dissent).

^[14] Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, supra note 7, at 30.

^[15] J. G. Hylton, supra note 4.

^[16] J. G. Hylton, supra note 4, at 136; See also Henk-Erik Meier & Borja García García, Protecting Private Transnational Authority against Public Intervention: FIFA’s Power over National Governments, 93 Pub. Admin. 890, 894 (2015) (FIFA’s suspension against Nigeria commenced on the 4th of October 2010 only to be lifted on the 8th of the same month).

^[17] Kshitij Anand, Indian football federation to be banned by FIFA: governing body issues final ultimatum to AIFF for constitution delay, Econ. Times (Aug. 27, 2025), https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/sports/indian-football-federation-to-be-banned-by-fifa-governing-body-issues-final-ultimatum-to-aiff-for-constitution-delay/articleshow/123540399.cms?from=mdr.

^[18] Ed Osmond & Christian Radnedge, FIFA lifts Pakistan's suspension after constitutional amendments, Reuters (Mar. 3, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/fifa-lifts-pakistans-suspension-after-constitutional-amendments-2025-03-03/.

^[19] Fairbridges Wertheim Becker, Understanding FIFA’s Third-party Non-interference Principle,  Mondaq  (Dec. 23, 2024), https://www.mondaq.com/southafrica/sport/1560616/understanding-fifas-third-party-non-interference-principle?.

^[20] Toby Davis, FIFA suspends Congo Republic and Pakistan, Reuters (Feb. 7, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/fifa-suspends-congo-republic-pakistan-2025-02-07/.

^[21] FIFPRO, The Lassana Diarra judgement explained: What does it mean for footballers? (May 22, 2025), https://www.fifpro.org/en/articles/2025/05/the-lassana-diarra-judgement-explained-what-does-it-mean-for-footballers.

^[22] Id.