FairSquare has called FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s presence and comments at the Sharm el-Sheikh ‘Peace Summit’ yesterday “highly significant and deeply troubling”. Infantino, who was at the summit alongside US President Donald Trump and numerous world leaders, released a video on his Instagram account and said that FIFA would “help to bring football back – together with […] The post Gianni Infantino at Sharm el-Sheikh summit: “highly significant and deeply troubling...| FairSquare
In an article written jointly with Antoine Duval of the Asser Law Institute, FairSquare Programme Director Nick McGeehan argues that the difference between UEFA and FIFA’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to Israel’s murderous war in Gaza is not premised on the gravity of the crimes committed, but on the degree of […] The post UEFA Virtue-Signalling While Gaza Burns appeared first on FairSquare.| FairSquare
Discussions in the sidelines of the 60th UN Human Rights Council session highlighted the depth and scale of repression in the United Arab Emirates and the phenomenon of transnational repression in the Arab states. On 2 October, FairSquare’s James Lynch moderated Silencing dissent: mass trials in the United Arab Emirates, a panel discussion at the […]| FairSquare
Six of the world’s biggest sports organisations, including FIFA, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Formula 1, have been challenged to justify their sponsorship deals with state-owned Saudi Aramco following concerns that such partnerships may place them in breach of international human rights standards. In letters sent this month, a coalition of ten human rights […] The post FIFA and International Cricket Council under scrutiny over Saudi Aramco ties in light of UN Human Rights W...| FairSquare
Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s pardon is a major step forward and a huge relief, FairSquare said today after his lawyer reported that the President had issued a pardon for the British-Egyptian national. FairSquare has been working closely with Alaa’s family in the UK since 2022, in an intense campaign that this year saw his mother Laila […] The post Alaa Abd el-Fattah pardoned appeared first on FairSquare.| FairSquare
Bohemian Football Club, FairSquare and Irish Sport for Palestine have written to UEFA requesting the immediate suspension of the Israel Football Association (IFA) from UEFA competitions due to serious, ongoing breaches of UEFA and FIFA statutes. The organisations’ submission sets out two independent and longstanding grounds, each sufficient on its own to trigger suspension: This […]| FairSquare
FairSquare has joined 19 Egyptian and international human rights organisations in condemning the Egyptian government’s unprecedented use of its diplomatic missions as tools of transnational repression. A leaked recording of Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty last month revealed shocking instructions to embassy staff to “grab [protestors], tie them up, drag them inside, and make their lives hell.” This […]| FairSquare
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Victims of transnational repression (TNR) in the UK may lose trust in the British system to take the threats to them seriously, a Select Committee inquiry has been told in relation to cases linked to the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In written evidence published by the UK parliament’s Joint Committee […]| FairSquare
FairSquare has today joined with the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Development, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve to call on the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to use his government’s deepening links with Bahrain to advocate for the release of the country’s political prisoners. In a letter sent on 9 July, sent after a meeting […] The post British PM urged to use influence in support of Bahrain’s political prisoners appeared first on FairSquare.| FairSquare
Ninety U.S.-based civil society groups have warned FIFA that it risks becoming a “public relations tool to whitewash the reputation of an increasingly authoritarian government”, in a joint letter that calls on FIFA to publicly urge the US government to reverse immigration policies and practices introduced by the Trump administration. The letter describes how repressive […]| FairSquare
FIFA’s ongoing failure to enforce sanctions against the Israeli Football Association (IFA) despite long-standing and irrefutable evidence that the IFA is in violation of FIFA Statutes is further evidence of the organisation’s ad hoc and selective enforcement of its rules. At its 75th annual Congress held in Paraguay on 15 May – twelve years after […]| FairSquare
FairSquare’s major October 2024 report Substitute: The Case for the External Reform of FIFA, has prompted a lengthy response from world football’s governing body. An email to FairSquare from FIFA’s Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, sent on 31 October 2024, the day after the publication of Substitute, stated that the report “misunderstood and mischaracterised many […]| FairSquare
A new policy brief published today by FairSquare makes the case for an enhanced role for the European Union in the reform of sports governance. The brief, Laws for the Game, produced in collaboration with Dr Jan Zglinski of the London School of Economics, starts from the position that greater public control of sport is […]| FairSquare
A major new report from FairSquare, published today, identifies serious structural flaws within FIFA, football’s global governing body, that have resulted in the organisation contributing to a wide range of social harms, not least very serious and systematic human rights abuses, and that preclude it from fulfilling one of its core stated objectives of developing […]| FairSquare
