🗣️ Introduction: Football’s Most Affected, Least Empowered Stakeholders
Players are the protagonists of professional football. They’re the backbone of clubs and leagues. Their performances generate revenue, their NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) fuels marketing, and their welfare underpins the legitimacy of the industry.
Yet for much of modern football history, players were not represented at the governance table—only in the matchday program.
They were labeled as “interest groups” rather than co-governors. Their rights were confined to wage negotiations, not regulatory design. And in many football jurisdictions, that framing still persists.
But in today’s environment—especially post-Diarra and in the era of the Global Labour Agreement (GLA)—this characterization is no longer accurate. Players’ associations are not peripheral. They are essential governance actors and must be recognized as such.
⚖️ Legal Identity: Players’ Associations as Social Partners
The legal status of a players’ association is not abstract—it’s codified.
In line with ILO Convention Nos. 87 and 98, players’ associations like FIFPRO and its national affiliates are protected collective bargaining agents empowered to negotiate the terms and conditions of professional football employment. This includes not only wages and per diems, but also image rights, travel standards, maternity protections, health safeguards (e.g., concussion protocols), and political representation.
This legal identity became operationalized in 2022 when FIFPRO and the World Leagues Forum (WLF) signed the first-ever Global Labour Agreement (GLA) in professional football, under the auspices of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
This wasn’t a memorandum. It was a treaty-level commitment to reframe the global football industry around collective governance.
🤝 The GLA: A Turning Point for Global Social Dialogue
As someone who worked directly on the GLA, I can say unequivocally: this is not symbolic. It is structural. It creates an enforceable governance framework between employers (leagues) and employees (players) through:
A permanent Executive Board with co-chairs from both sides
The power to pass binding Industry Agreements
Mandated representation in decisions on match calendars, player workload, and employment protections
This model isn't theoretical. It's already filling the vacuum left by FIFA's top-down, pro forma governance approach.
🇨🇦 Canadian Case Study: PFACan and the Limits of Labour Power in a Young Football Economy
In Canada, the Professional Footballers Association Canada (PFACan) represents CPL players and is the country’s only FIFPRO-recognized union. Yet, the Canadian football economy remains structurally fragmented.
Two players’ associations operate independently—PFACan and the Canadian Soccer Players’ Association (CSPA)—with no unified national mandate. And the root cause is not rivalry; it’s a lack of football regulatory expertise across the ecosystem.
“We’re operating in a young football economy, where regulatory understanding is still developing and resistance to change can be strong — but the players have made their position clear— in fact, players unanimously voted to affirm PFACan as their union.
They want more than symbolic inclusion. They want to be respected as industry professionals, with a seat at the table and a voice in determining the system. If we stay committed to open dialogue, we can keep each other honest—players, clubs, leagues, and player associations alike—and move the game forward together.”
Dan Kruk — Executive Director PFA Canada | AFP Canada
Although PFACan is the FIFPRO-recognized union representing CPL players, there has never been a formal collective bargaining agreement in place between the union and the league. As a result, several critical employment issues remain unresolved—including the treatment of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), which continues to be poorly understood at the governance level. While player advocacy has advanced and awareness is growing, institutional knowledge gaps still hinder the adoption of modern employment standards across the league.
Until clubs and governing bodies adopt a shared governance mindset, Canada’s football ecosystem will remain under-leveraged and structurally fragile. The challenge is not a lack of talent or ambition—it is the concentration of institutional power and the reluctance to include players as equal partners in shaping the system.
🇺🇸🇨🇦 A Closer Look at Union Fragmentation in North America
In the United States, multiple players’ unions operate independently across leagues and competitions:
MLSPA – Represents Major League Soccer players; FIFPRO Member
NWSLPA – Represents players in the National Women’s Soccer League; Non-FIFPRO Member
USLPA – Represents players in the USL Championship and League One; Non-FIFPRO Member
USWNTPA / USMNTPA – Represent players on the U.S. Women’s and Men’s National Teams; Non-FIFPRO Members
This decentralized structure leads to siloed operations, varying levels of recognition, and inconsistent access to international support systems. The result is a fragmented labour ecosystem where coordination is limited, bargaining leverage is diluted, and standards differ widely based on gender, league, or level of competition.
This same dynamic is visible in Canada, where the lack of a unified player voice across club and national levels further weakens the country’s position in global football governance. Without institutional coherence or shared governance mechanisms, North American football continues to operate without the collective infrastructure needed to support player rights at scale.
🌍 Unified Models Abroad
By contrast, many established football nations operate under a single union model, encompassing both national team and league players:
🇪🇸 Spain – AFE covers all pro tiers
🇬🇧 UK – PFA serves as the unified voice for all English professionals
🇲🇽 Mexico – Asociación Mexicana de Futbolistas unites national and club-level players
This model fosters more coherent governance, centralized negotiation, and stronger alignment between domestic and global standards.
❗ What About the Caribbean?
While Canada and the U.S. face governance fragmentation, the Caribbean suffers from institutional absence.
Despite a growing professional landscape—with more clubs, more transfers, and more FIFA-recognized competitions—there is no active FIFPRO member union anywhere in the region.
A senior union leader recently suggested tempering criticism, acknowledging that FIFPRO may be quietly laying groundwork. This effort should be noted.
But it doesn’t change the facts:
No formal FIFPRO presence
No recognized union
No regional development strategy
This absence leaves Caribbean players structurally unprotected and economically excluded. FIFPRO has proven it can provide meaningful support elsewhere, such as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where its guidance catalyzed the launch of a functioning union.
The same institutional will must be extended to Caribbean footballers—many of whom have already made disproportionate contributions to global football talent pipelines. Their rights should not be conditional on GDP or media visibility.
⚠️ The Case for Urgency: Fragmented Where It Matters Most
In two of the three largest football economies in CONCACAF—the United States and Canada—player representation remains structurally fragmented, with overlapping mandates, inconsistent frameworks, and no unified national strategy.
Across the entire Caribbean, there is no formal players’ union presence at all.
This isn’t just a governance issue. It’s a systemic failure in football development infrastructure—one that sidelines players across regions critical to global talent production.
🔍 Where the Gaps Still Exist
Despite progress like the GLA, three core issues remain:
Lack of Binding Authority at FIFA FIFPRO’s input remains consultative. The Football Stakeholders Committee is advisory only, while real decision-making power sits with the FIFA Council.
Domestic Underdevelopment and Regional Imbalance Too many countries lack the technical, legal, or financial infrastructure to support players’ unions. FIFPRO’s selective regional engagement exacerbates this imbalance.
No Regulatory Veto Power When it comes to employment rules, players deserve more than consultation. They need co-signature rights and, where necessary, the power to block harmful regulations.
📌 Final Thoughts
The time to stop treating players’ associations as lobbyists is long past. They are:
Institutional actors
Legal regulators of labour standards
Co-authors of global football’s future
The GLA shows us what’s possible at the global level. The CSPA and PFACan demonstrate how that model can be localized.
But for this transformation to scale across CONCACAF, Africa, and Asia, federations, leagues, and global bodies must embrace social dialogue not as an ideal—but as a binding framework for governance.
True reform doesn’t begin with listening. It begins with shared authorship.
