FIFA Explained: How Football's Governing Body Works — and Why It's So Controversial
The Structure
FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association — is the governing body of world football, responsible for organizing the World Cup, setting the rules of the game, and distributing development funds to its 211 member associations. It is a non-profit organization registered under Swiss law, headquartered in Zurich, and governed by a Congress in which each member association — from Brazil to Bhutan — gets one vote.
This one-country-one-vote structure is politically important. A small Caribbean nation has the same voting power as Germany or England. This means FIFA's president is elected not by the countries that produce the best football or generate the most revenue, but by the countries that are most numerous. The result is a political dynamic in which the president must maintain support among smaller federations, often through development grants, infrastructure projects, and the promise of World Cup access. Critics call this vote-buying. FIFA calls it development.
The Money
FIFA is not poor. Its revenue for the 2023-2026 cycle was projected at over $11 billion, the vast majority from World Cup broadcasting and sponsorship deals. The organization operates on a four-year cycle tied to the men's World Cup, which is one of the most valuable media properties on Earth. FIFA's expenses include roughly $1.6 billion in development payments to member associations and confederations, World Cup prize money, and organizational costs.
The controversy over Infantino's World Cup sell-off — the decision to award broadcasting rights for the 2030 and 2034 tournaments through direct negotiation rather than competitive bidding — is about both process and money. Critics allege that FIFA is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table by bypassing competitive auctions, potentially benefiting favored broadcasters at the expense of the member associations that would receive the foregone revenue. Infantino's defenders argue that direct negotiations allow FIFA to secure long-term partnerships and invest in regions where traditional broadcast markets are weak.
Why Reform is Hard
FIFA has been through reform cycles before. The 2015 corruption scandal that brought down Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini led to governance changes: term limits for the president, separation of political and management functions, publication of executive salaries. Infantino was elected on a reform platform in 2016. Critics argue that those reforms did not go far enough — that the concentration of power in the presidency, the lack of independent oversight, and the one-country-one-vote system that rewards patronage politics remain fundamentally unchanged.
Reforming FIFA requires changing its statutes, which requires a two-thirds majority of the Congress — the same body that elected Infantino and whose members benefit from the current system. External pressure from sponsors, broadcasters, and national governments can shift incentives at the margins, but the structural problem is that FIFA's governance is designed to be accountable to its members, not to the public, the media, or the fans who make football the world's most popular sport.
The Edge Review explains sports governance for general readers. FIFA's financial reports and governance documents are publicly available on fifa.com.