FIFA significantly tightened the tone in a dispute with the international FIFPRO player union.
The union is less interested in the player than in “theatrical accusations” and “headlines”, it said on Friday in a message from the World Football Association. At the same time, FIFA rose sharper guns and asked FIFPRO to publish “complete financial reports including all sources of income”.
The disclosure is a prerequisite for returning to the negotiating table. “To say it clearly: You cannot preach transparency while you act in non-transparency,” said the FIFA announcement. A “full list of the individual members that they supposedly represent” should also be published.
The dispute between FIFA and FIFPRO was cooked up in the USA at the end of the club World Cup. FIFPro President Sergio Marchi accused the World Association of staging the club World Cup as a “global football celebration”, although it is actually “nothing more than fiction”. FIFA increases its income “at the expense of the body and health of the players,” said Marchi of the BBC. He also compared FIFA President Gianni Infantino to the Roman emperor Nero.
According to the FIFA, FIFA had held a session with “several player unions from all over the world” during the club World Cup. FIFPRO was just as much a part of it as the German Association VDV, which also criticized the club World Cup. “We weren’t there at the meeting in New York. There was no invitation,” said Managing Director Ulf Baranowsky when asked by SID: “It would be interesting to know who exactly met.”
FIFA emphasized that she had made “long, unsuccessful efforts to bring the FIFPRO to a negotiating table before the meeting. In this context, the World Association referred to its own achievements to protect the players, such as the introduction of five changes per encounter or the special protection of players with concussion.