FIFA is facing renewed scrutiny over its governance, transparency and institutional independence after the Council of Europe publicly questioned decisions taken during the 2026 World Cup. In a statement released hours before the final, Secretary General Alain Berset cited political pressure, challenges to refereeing authority, racist abuse of players and the expansion of prediction markets. His assessment extended beyond individual controversies: “The next crisis has already begun. It has two names: money and power.”
The most immediate concern involved Folarin Balogun. The United States forward was sent off against Bosnia and Herzegovina and faced an automatic one-match suspension, but FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee stayed the sanction for a one-year probationary period under Article 27 of its Disciplinary Code. The decision followed a telephone call in which US President Donald Trump asked FIFA President Gianni Infantino to review the case. FIFA announced the legal basis for the ruling but did not publish its complete reasoning or establish that the call had influenced the committee. Berset nevertheless argued that the sequence created an appearance of political interference: “When the rules bend under pressure, every result is open to doubt.”
Prediction markets enter the governance debate
Berset also questioned FIFA’s multi-year agreement with ADI Predictstreet, appointed in April as the organisation’s first official partner in the prediction-market category. The platform used official FIFA data and allowed supporters to forecast results, tournament statistics, player performances and individual moments. FIFA presented the partnership as a new form of fan engagement and said it would include real-time monitoring of suspicious activity, structured information sharing and other measures intended to protect fairness and participants.
The Council of Europe viewed the same development through the risk of manipulation. Prediction markets can move beyond the final score and focus on events such as passes, cards or corners that one player may influence without changing the result. That creates a different integrity challenge from conventional match betting because a small incident can determine whether a position wins or loses. The criticism therefore concerns not only commercial policy but also the compatibility between FIFA’s role as a rights holder and its responsibility to protect competitions. The Council already addresses this area through the Macolin Convention, the only binding international treaty specifically designed to combat the manipulation of sporting events.
Criticism from an institutional partner
The intervention carries particular weight because it did not come from an external campaign group. FIFA and the Council of Europe signed a memorandum of understanding in 2018 covering human rights, integrity, good governance, security and cooperation around major sporting events. Infantino and Berset met again in New York in 2024 and discussed strengthening their work on child safeguarding, match manipulation and institutional governance. Public criticism is therefore unusual between two organisations that have formally presented themselves as partners in protecting football.
FIFA can point to reforms approved in 2016, including term limits, separation between political and management functions, eligibility checks, independent committee members and greater disclosure of senior officials’ remuneration. Those changes established a more detailed governance framework than the one in place before the corruption crisis of 2015. The current dispute, however, is less about whether formal rules exist than whether their application can be independently understood when political or commercial pressure arises. The Council of Europe, which has 46 member states and is separate from the European Union, cannot overturn FIFA decisions or sanction the organisation through Berset’s statement. Its influence lies instead in political pressure, international conventions and the capacity to turn governance concerns into expectations for governments and sports bodies.
The 2030 World Cup becomes the next test
Berset proposed a “third half”: an institutional dialogue intended to establish an integrity framework before the 2030 World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. He supported the proposal with previous examples of the Council of Europe responding to sporting crises through binding rules. After 39 people died at Heysel Stadium in 1985, it helped develop a treaty on spectator safety. It later created the Anti-Doping Convention and the Macolin Convention, addressing threats that individual federations could not regulate effectively on their own.
As of 24 July, FIFA had not issued a specific public response to Berset’s proposal. It has defended the safeguards attached to ADI Predictstreet, attributed the Balogun ruling to its Disciplinary Committee and continued to present its post-2016 reforms as evidence of institutional progress. The Council of Europe’s criticism does not prove that those reforms have failed, but it shows that formal change has not resolved external doubts about independence and accountability. Before 2030, the practical test will be whether FIFA publishes fuller reasoning for sensitive disciplinary decisions, demonstrates how its committees remain independent and explains how prediction markets can coexist with its responsibility to prevent manipulation. The wider question is no longer whether international sports organisations should retain autonomy, but how that autonomy can remain credible when their decisions carry global political, regulatory and economic consequences.
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