💸 Billions on the Field, No Vote on the Future: Why Football Leagues Remain Outside the Decision-Making Core
A 4-minute read for Legal Executives | Club Executives | League Governance Actors | Players Associations | Sports Law Educators | and anyone shaping football governance from policy to pitch.
Football governance isn’t broken because the rules are unclear — it’s broken because those living the realities of the modern game have no power in shaping them.
After earning my Master of Laws in International Sports Law and joining the World Leagues Forum as its first lawyer, I stepped directly into the growing tension between global regulation and regional reality. From calendar clashes to regulatory overreach, it became clear: leagues — the most active, economically valuable and innovative institutions in football — are structurally sidelined in the very system they uphold.
Before we talk about why this matters, we need to understand what a league is. And why not all leagues are built the same.
🌍 Two Football Worlds: Open vs Closed
There are two dominant league models in global football — and they tell two very different stories.
In Europe and South America, football is built as an ‘ecosystem’. Leagues are open — connected by a pyramid of promotion and relegation that ties even the smallest third-division club to the dream of top-flight competition. These leagues operate in a decentralized market economy, where clubs are autonomous entities with their own ownership, ambitions, and governance. This open competition model breathes solidarity from top to bottom: mechanisms like training compensation and league financial redistribution systems exist to keep smaller clubs alive while rewarding long-term player development. In this world, the game is open — economically and competitively.
Cross the ocean to North America, Central America, The Caribbean The Guianas, Oceania or parts of Asia, and the football universe changes. Leagues here are closed.
There's no promotion or relegation, no underdog climbing the ranks. Instead, clubs operate under a centralized structure, controlled by the league — one entity, one mandate, one rulebook. The league owns the competition, sets salary caps, and often control the commercial rights of all its clubs (though, Liga MX is a special case).
Investors don’t acquire clubs — they buy into a system. Revenue sharing smooths out financial differences, and the goal is parity: making the product predictable, marketable, and sustainable.
These aren't just different business models. They are competing philosophies — one favours mobility, the other management. One leans into risk, tradition and solidarity — the other into control and growth.
Both models are valid. But they demand acknowledgement of the fact that different governance structures require different thought processes.
🧠 So, Where Do Leagues Sit in FIFA's Governance?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: leagues, regardless of their structure or economic contribution, are still systemically excluded from football’s core decision-making bodies.
Instead, they are funnelled into FIFA’s Football Stakeholders Committee — a non-binding advisory body that can issue recommendations but holds no voting power.
The real authority rests with the FIFA Council, where leagues, in contrast to Member Associations, have no formal representation. As I’ve explored in greater depth in Football Legal, this setup raises serious questions about legitimacy, accountability, and the integrity of global football governance.
FIFA controls the rulebook, the international calendar, and the regulatory agenda — while simultaneously competing with domestic leagues through its own tournaments.
That dual role as rule making and competition organizer creates inherent conflicts of interest, especially for leagues operating in congested schedules with limited influence over policy decisions that directly impact them. Take the 2025 FIFA Club World Club as a very relevant example.
⚖️ A Quiet Shift: The Global Labour Agreement
Faced with exclusion, leagues and players — the two most impacted parties in global football — have started creating new frameworks outside of FIFA altogether.
Enter the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Global Labour Agreement (GLA).
Signed between the World Leagues Forum and FIFPro, with institutional support of the ILO, the GLA marks a turning point: a direct recognition of employers (leagues) and employees (players) working together at the global level — on their own terms.
It’s still early days, but the symbolism is powerful: if FIFA won't include leagues meaningfully, leagues will create new channels of influence.
🎯 What’s at Stake?
Football governance isn’t theoretical. It affects how clubs operate, how players are treated, how revenues are shared, and how sustainable the system is, particularly for the relevant stakeholders that are affected by FIFAs decisions.
If we ignore the structural exclusion of leagues — and the massive differences between open and closed systems — we risk enforcing a global model that fits no one.
What works for LaLiga may not work for MLS. What fits the Bundesliga may not translate to the Canadian Premier League. And what suits both might still fall short in regions like the Caribbean — where football development faces entirely different structural and economic realities.
Governance must reflect the regional realities on the ground. Not impose top-down structures.
It’s time FIFA stopped treating leagues like guests in their own house — and started seeing them as the co-architects of football’s future.
📚 Read the original article I co-authored with WLF Secretary General Jérôme Perlemuter in Football Legal Journel #17 (2022):
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