A huge statement was jointly published by Europe’s four major leagues this Friday morning!

The Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga have indeed taken a joint stand this Friday morning, calling for reform at FIFA just months before the next elections.

In the crosshairs: Gianni Infantino and his stillborn controversial plan to commercialize the World Cup, dubbed FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), which envisaged opening up FIFA’s commercial activities to private investors.

"The World Cup may be the pinnacle of our sport, but the foundations of football are sustained week after week, in packed stadiums and local communities, through the commitment of players, supporters, clubs and leagues around the world.

These long-standing foundations of football have been threatened in recent years by a fundamental governance problem: the FIFA president has actively promoted exploitative ideas instead of opposing them. And although football stakeholders ultimately forced the withdrawal of the ‘FIFA Forward Enterprise’ (FFE) program, the conditions that led to the creation of FFE persist.

The FIFA president has now acknowledged the need for reform, but it is not enough to consider superficial procedural changes in the aftermath of FFE: fundamental governance reform is essential to restore clear statutory limits within FIFA, including certainty that individual disciplinary matters remain clearly shielded from any political interference.

FIFA’s future concerns everyone who cares about football, because our sport cannot grow globally if its foundations are shaken.

FIFA’s governance problem goes far beyond the role of any one individual. The broader question is whether the FIFA president should simultaneously wield such regulatory, commercial and political power without effective checks and balances, particularly without the agreement of the stakeholders concerned. More than a decade ago, following criminal prosecutions involving senior football officials, the reform process launched by FIFA itself was intended to address these issues — yet once again, football has suffered one of the most serious abuses of power in FIFA’s history.