FIFA Statutes 2021
FIFA Statutes, May 2021 edition, adopted by the Congress of 21 May 2021 and in force immediately; the Football Tribunal was recognised in the Statutes for the first time.
| Adoption | 21 May 2021 — FIFA Congress |
| In force from | Immediately upon adoption |
| Structure | 75 articles of the Statutes + Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes + Standing Orders of the Congress |
| Status | Superseded — replaced by the May 2022 edition |
What are the FIFA Statutes?
The FIFA Statutes are the federation's constitutive instrument: they determine FIFA's legal nature and seat, its objectives, the conditions of membership of national associations and their rights and obligations, the position of the confederations, the structure of the bodies (Congress, Council, general secretary, standing committees and judicial bodies), and the dispute resolution mechanism, including referral to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes and the Standing Orders of the Congress are also published within this same document.
About the May 2021 editionChanges from June 2019
Pursuant to article 75, these Statutes were adopted at the Congress of 21 May 2021 and entered into force immediately. The Standing Orders of the Congress in this edition are those adopted by the Congress of 18 September 2020.
Principal changes from the previous edition
- Recognition of the Football Tribunal in the StatutesA separate section entitled "Football Tribunal" (article 54) was added to the structure of the Statutes, providing that "the Football Tribunal shall perform its duties in accordance with these Statutes and the applicable FIFA regulations".
- Merger of the Governance Committee into the Audit and Compliance CommitteeThe "Governance Committee and Review Committee" was removed from the list of standing committees, and an independent committee under the new title "Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee" was established.
- Recognition of the virtual CongressIt was provided that the Congress may be held in person, by telephone, by video conference or by other means of communication, and that attendance by such means counts as attendance; at the same time it was specified that voting by proxy or by letter is not permitted at an in-person Congress.
- Replacement of "intermediaries" with "football agents"In the Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes, the section "Match agents and intermediaries" was changed to "Match agents and football agents".
- Requirement of representative democracy and gender equality in national associationsIt was added to the obligations of the associations that legislative bodies must be constituted in accordance with the principles of representative democracy and taking into account the importance of gender equality in football, and that an independent annual audit must be carried out.
Who this document matters to
The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran is bound to observe the principles of this document in framing its own statutes; independence from third-party interference, the holding of free and periodic elections, and the requirement to have recourse to the Court of Arbitration for Sport rather than to national courts derive from this instrument. For sports lawyers, the Statutes are likewise the basis for establishing the competence of FIFA's bodies and the legitimacy of their decisions.