FIFA has been the subject of relentless criticism and not only since the recent scandals shook the entire football world. There is no doubt that FIFA needs to instigate many-faceted, major reforms of its administration, procedures and structure that will transform different areas of the Football Governing Body’s fundament in order to recapture its credibility and reputation. Up to now, such fundamental alterations have not been visible.
One of the weaknesses of the FIFA structure is its election system which is based on the principle of ‘one member, one vote’. According to article 23 par. 1 of the FIFA Statutes (2015) each member association of FIFA has one vote in the Congress which is football’s powerful ‘parliament’ and acts as the supreme and legislative body. Inter alia, the Congress is responsible for adopting and amending the Statutes (art. 26 FIFA Statutes) and also elects the FIFA President in accordance with article 17 par. 3 of the Electoral Regulations for the FIFA Presidency (2014).
This principle ‘one member, one vote’ might be regarded at first sight as democratic as each of FIFA’s 209 member associations has the same impact on the FIFA election process such as voting for the President, but also in making other important decisions that shape FIFA’s future. Nevertheless, even the principle of democracy contains restrictions and doesn’t grant every citizen one vote. Rather there, the right to vote underlies certain limits, such as age limits etc. Also, an essential principle of the democracy and a general legal principle is that only equal circumstances can be treated equally.
The voice of huge football nations such as Argentina, Germany or England have the same weight as football nations that don’t even have professional football. Also, member associations with a high population such as Brazil who represent a significant amount of 203 million people have the same voting power as territories such as the Cook Islands with just a small population of approx. 10,000 inhabitants. Therefore, in this case the principle of ‘one member, one vote’ isn’t appropriate under the perspective of fairness.
Furthermore, the current vote system bears potential dangers and makes the football family more vulnerable to corrupt practices as the following example illustrates: FIFA has implemented different football development programs which aim at supporting individual member associations financially, for instance the Goal Programme. It was established in 1999 and enabled 200 projects (at $500,000 each) to be funded during the 2011-2014 cycle, according to the FIFA Financial Report 2014, page 46. Especially, for small member association such funds can be very attractive. In the past, it has been questioned publicly if these funds have always been used for football related projects only. Not an assumption but because of the FIFA structure a potential risk is that such funds which are dedicated to football development could be misused to secure and influence a certain electoral behavior of the smaller member associations.
The Point-Voting-System outlined in this article, is a possible pathway to a fair and balanced voting system. The Point-Voting-System is elaborated and applicable. It can also contribute in stimulating the discussions about the reform of the current FIFA Voting-System. It is based on three different components as the benchmark to determine the specific amount of the voting points allocated to the individual member association. Those three components are the population of the country, the football related success of the men’s national teams and the football related success of the women’s national teams. The member associations receive for every component one specific amount of points from 1 to 10 and the average of all three results will be the final score within Point-Voting-System.
In the following, the three components will be explained more detailed.
1. The component ‘population’
The population of the member associations was selected as one of the three components as this corresponds with the principle of fairness. The purpose therefore is, as mentioned already above, that the larger and significant football nations should receive more influence than the smaller ones. Also, the population reflects the potential for the development of football in this specific country and the amount of people represented by a certain member association.
Another option would be to take the existing number of registered football clubs per country into consideration instead of relying on the population of the country. This would highlight the interest of its population in football. However, the decision to take the population as a basis was made because population is a factor measured independently of football authorities and cannot easily be manipulated in order to receive more power.
To evaluate the population per country, the official numbers published on the internet were used. Minor deviations would be irrelevant because the Point-Voting-System carries out graduations by every 10 million inhabitants per country. To make it more understandable: Every member association with a population of up to 10 million receives 1 Voting Point. Every member association with a population of over 10 million receives 2 Voting Points and for every further commenced 10 million population it receives 1 more point. For instance, Argentina has a population of circa 43 million which corresponds to 5 Voting Points (for more details see chart 1 population in appendix). 10 Voting Points is the maximum amount that can be received by a member association. Thus, the scale goes from 1 to 10 Voting Points depending on the population of the member association. Member Associations with a population under 10 million receive 1 Voting Point and those with over 100 million are limited to receive just the maximum of 10 Voting Points in order to ensure the principle of the voting proportionality between all members is met (see chart 1 in appendix that illustrates this principle).
When considering the large amount of 209 members with their different populations, going from a few thousand up to 1 billion, it can be seen that the points system from 1 to 10 with an average number of 2.5 voting points per member is quite balanced, although the ideal would be 5 points. Also, the distribution between the member association with 1 to 5 Voting Points (292 Points in aggregate) and the members with 6-10 Voting Points (233 Points in aggregate) shows that the smaller nations have still the preponderance in comparison to the larger nations (see chart 2 in appendix).
2. The component of ‘football related success’ – FIFA World Ranking Men’s List
The second component of the Point-Voting-System to determine the weight of the vote of the individual member association is the football related success of their national men’s team. Therefore, the official FIFA Ranking Men’s List is crucial and the respective ranking of the team defines the amount of points which the member associations receive (see chart 3 in appendix).
Through taking the sporting success as a parameter to receive more voting weight and therefore more power within FIFA, the voting system creates an incentive effect for member associations to work on their sporting success. The higher the national team is ranked, the more points on the scale from 1 to 10 the member association will receive. This approach is in line with the objectives of FIFA which are, according to Article 2 a) of the FIFA Statutes, inter alia to improve and develop the game of football constantly and globally.
The component FIFA World Ranking Men’s List results at the pointing system from 1 to 10 voting points in an average number of 5.5 voting points per member which is very balanced as the ideal would be 5 points (see chart 4 in appendix). The allocation which was chosen to determine the points granted per ranking (see below) is also very balanced and transparent.
The FIFA World Ranking Men’s List contains 209 teams in total. Therefore, the division factor 10 was chosen. This results in 20.9 which were rounded to 21. This means that the national teams ranking from 1-21 receive 10 points, teams ranking from 22-42 receive 9 points etc.
3. The component of ‘football related success’ – FIFA World Ranking Women’s List
The third component of the Point-Voting-System to evaluate the value of the votes of the member associations is the performance of their women’s national team, equally to the consideration of the men’s ranking. Also here, depending on the standing in the FIFA World Ranking Women’s List the member association receives a certain amount of voting points which scale between 1 and 10 Points.
This allocation results an average number of 4.5 voting points per association. As the ideal would be 5 points (see chart 5 in appendix), the allocation which was chosen (see below) is also very balanced and transparent.
The FIFA World Ranking Women’s List contains 179 teams but the FIFA ranking reaches only from rank 1 to 142. Again, the division factor 10 was chosen. This results in 14.2 which was rounded to 14. This means that the national teams ranking from 1-14 receive 10 points, teams ranking from 15-28 receive 9 points etc.
Member Associations without any national team ranked on the FIFA list will receive no points through this component. Therefore, this approach provides an important incentive for the member associations to develop women’s football in their jurisdiction as in this way they are able to receive essential voting points (see chart 6 in appendix).
4. Conclusion
As shown in this article, the Point-Voting-System is based on three different components that determine the weight of the votes of the member associations by granting them a certain and individual amount of voting points (see chart 7 in appendix). This system measures the amount of voting points per member association depending on the three different factors. Those factors are the population of the country that can obviously not be influenced by sport, but also in addition the football related success of the men’s and of the women’s national teams. Through taking the achievements as a basis, the incentives to develop the football should be strengthen.
The average of all three components will be the final score within the Point-Voting-System. It was decided that the final scale should also go from 1 to 10 Voting Points. From this it follows that the average number is 4 voting points per member which is still quite balanced with the distribution between the member association with 1 to 5 Voting Points, all together 408 Points, and the members with 6-10 Voting Points, all together 419 Points (see chart below).
The calculation of the individual points is transparent and the result is from an objective perspective more balanced, comprehensive and reasonable than the current voting system. With the current FIFA voting system the small member associations without significant football success have the same voting power as the great football nations, but the likelihood that smaller members can be influenced is potentially higher. For instance, it is more difficult to influence a Football Association like England than a small football association without even professional football. A positive side-effect of the Point-Voting-System is that it makes the smaller members less attractive to those seeking to influence because they have, in the absolute worst case scenario, if they have a small population, no football success and no women’s team, a 10 times less voting power than a large football nation, which can be considered as fair. Just in order to prevent criticism that the difference of 10 times more voting power between the respective members is too high, it can also be discussed to convert the scale to 1-5 points only. This shows how flexible the principles of this Point-Voting-System are. However, because of the large amount of smaller football associations they have still enough power to secure their interests (see chart below).
Due to the fact that each member associations receive individual voting points on the scale between 1 to 10 points, this effects inevitably the distribution of the confederation’s voting power.
Concluding, the graphic below serves to visualize the differences of the voting power of Confederations regarding the Point-Voting-System to the current FIFA system.
Dr. Laila Mintas is Director of Sports Integrity at CONCACAF. A lawyer, she was formerly Head of Legal and International Development for FIFA’s Early Warning System (EWS) in Zurich. She previously practised law at international law firm White & Case LLP, headquarters in New York, and has lectured law at the Humboldt University of Berlin. She is a professor for Sports Law at the ISDE program at Columbia University and St. Johns University in New York. The arguments expressed in this article are those of the author and not the policy or strategy of CONCACAF.
APPENDIX
