The FIFA

The FIFA is the governing body that organizes international association football along with other variants of the game such as Beach Soccer and Futsal.  It is a French acronym which stands for “Fédération Internationale de Football Association” or in English the “International Federation of Association Football”.  FIFA takes responsibility for the organization of all the international tournaments of football including the World Cup which is considered one of the most popular tournaments in the world.  FIFA also boasts of having a total of 208 members comprised of different national football associations (by comparison, the United Nations only has 193 states as members).  It is based in the city of Zurich in Switzerland and it is currently headed by Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president.

FIFA was founded on May 21, 1904 in Paris, France which explains the French acronym which still remains today.  There were 8 founding members. These were France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Spain which was represented by the football club of Madrid due to the absence of a Spanish Football Federation at the time.  The German Football Association also declared that it would be part of the FIFA by sending a telegram to the association on the same day.

The highest governing body of the FIFA is the FIFA Congress.  This is an assembly that gathers one representative from each of the member football associations and each representative gets one vote, regardless of its country’s size or its team’s prowess in the tournaments.  This assembly meets regularly for a single gathering every year, although beginning in 1998, the FIFA Congress has also held a special session annually.  Being the highest governing body of the FIFA, only the FIFA Congress has the power to enact changes to the prevailing statutes of FIFA.  It is also the FIFA Congress which is responsible in electing the members of the federation’s executive committee which include the President and the Secretary General.  Furthermore, the FIFA Congress approves and checks the annual report, decides on the applications of new member associations, and discusses issues regarding the implications and applications of the Federations statutes.

During the rest of the year when the FIFA Congress is not convened, the FIFA Executive Committee takes over the daily decision making duties for the Federation. This committee is led by the FIFA president and it includes 8 vice-presidents and 15 executive committee members with all of the members having a mandate of 4 years.  This committee convenes at least 2 times every year and its role in the Federation include determining the different specifications of international tournaments such as the schedules, locations, and the format to be used.  It is also responsible in determining the official delegates of the FIFA to the IFAB and in electing the secretary general.  Under the Executive Committee, other committees have been created to further improve the organization of the Federation.  Some of these committees are: the Disciplinary Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Referee’s Committee.  The administration of the rules and guidelines set out by the Executive Committee are carried out by the FIFA General Secretariat which is made up of a staff of about 200 people.