FIFA Members Lack Transparency

FIFA member federations are not transparent about their activities and financial spendings. 168 members of 209 did not make their financial reports available to the public, according to a research made by Transparency International.

Transparency International reported that 21% of the national football bodies do not have website in order to explain their work, 85% of them do not publish annual accounts and 81% do not have publicly available financial records.

England, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Italy are among the 14th FAs that published the minimum of the necessary information. These details are needed because people have to know what the football associations do and how they spend money.

Hungary, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and Portugal are the other the nations that meet the minimum amount of information, required by TI. Only 3 of 14 nations were outside the old continent: Japan, Canada and New Zealand.

Cobus de Swardt, TI managing director, said that the risk of corruption was high. The main reason for such level of risk is because there is lack of information. Audited financial statements were not available.

FIFA senior officials are under criminal investigation by prosecutors in Switzerland and the United States of America.

FIFA’s financials have to be critically observed. This is the main step that needs to be done in order to change the culture of the members of FIFA. This was suggested by the Transparency International. FIFA has to make its main priority to reform its lack of transparency.

FIFA has six continental confederations. They shared $102 million from the 2012 World Cup. Each of FAs got a minimum $2.05 million dollars income. Only two of them are regularly revealing their annual accounts in a document of 16 pages. These are UEFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

TI said that it is impossible to follow the course of the FIFA members’ actions and that it was unclear what they had done with their money.

FIFA needs to follow a minimum of four steps set by TI, in order to be transparent. The members have to publish financial accounts that went through audit, a conduct code, organisational statutes and an annual report for activities.

Cyprus, Kuwait, Turks and Caicos Islands and Congo are among the 87 nations that have zero points for transparency.

The 2018 World Cup host Russia met only two of the four minimum requirements and Qatar, the 2022 World Cup host, has zero points.

The US published their financial accounts, but they failed in reporting their activity and code of conduct.