World governing body organises gathering of compliance leads to present their programmes for knowledge-sharing
Representatives from the AFC, CAF, Concacaf, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA were all present for roundtable sessions
It was the first in-person gathering of its kind since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
FIFA hosted the heads of compliance from each of the six confederations for a special two-day roundtable workshop, held on 12 and 13 of May 2022 at the Home of FIFA in Zurich. The meeting was opened by FIFA’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer Emilio Garcia Silvero and the Director of Compliance, Patrick Trépanier. Attendees included Omar El Ghiati, (CAF Head of Legal Affairs, Corporate), Graciela Garay (CONMEBOL Director Ethics and Compliance), Farah Mohammed (OFC Acting Head of Legal and Compliance), Iskandar Leong (AFC Head of Compliance), Inés Zurera (UEFA Governance & Compliance Officer) and, attending remotely, Bill Carvalho (Concacaf Chief Legal & Compliance Officer).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the first opportunity for an in-person meeting of its kind since 2019 and acted as a pre-cursor to the 4th FIFA Compliance Summit, which will take place later in 2022.
FIFA is committed to continued engagement to share best practices in promoting transparency and ethical behaviour, identifying risk and helping develop a unified global standard for robust compliance programmes across FIFA's 211 Member Associations"
During the two-day meeting, attendees presented their compliance programmes to the group, followed by a feedback session on each, to knowledge share and explore potential support and collaboration opportunities. FIFA also presented an update on its own compliance programme. Emilio Garcia said: “FIFA is committed to continued engagement with our colleagues from around the world, and such meetings are invaluable as we continue to explore and share best practices in promoting transparency and ethical behaviour, identifying risk and helping to develop a unified global standard for robust compliance programmes across every one of the 211 Member Associations. “It has been a pleasure to welcome our friends and colleagues to Zurich for this workshop, and I look forward to continuing to develop some of the many ideas we have discussed together.”
FIFA launched its Compliance Programme in 2017, with the objective of embedding a culture of credibility, transparency and accountability in parallel with organisation-wide reforms to make FIFA the trustworthy, modern and professional organisation it is today. As part of that process, the FIFA Compliance Handbook was launched in 2020, and is a best practice document for Member Associations to reference while implementing their own programmes. The roundtable workshop was also a platform to plan for FIFA’s Compliance Summit to which compliance representatives from all 211 Member Associations are invited. First held in 2017, the Summit is an integral part of FIFA’s ongoing efforts to strengthen good governance and promote ethical conduct across the international football community. Having successfully held the Summit online in 2020, the plan for 2022 is to re-connect in person, the location to be announced in the near future.
