PREMIER LEAGUE JOINS EUROPEAN LEAGUES IN FIFA REFORM CALL

The Premier League has issued a joint statement with Spain's La Liga, Germany's Bundesliga and Italy's Serie A calling for "fundamental" reform of how football's world governing body, Fifa, is run. The four leagues accused Fifa president Gianni Infantino of having "actively promoted exploitative ideas". They said they were speaking out "because we understand how Fifa's relentless expansionism affects everyone". The statement called for Fifa to become "transparent, objective, proportionate and inclusive", warning that "our sport cannot grow globally if its foundations are undermined". It follows Infantino's proposal, made days earlier, for an external review of how Fifa operates.

That review proposal came amid controversy over Infantino's now-abandoned plan to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors, which the leagues said had prompted a global outcry. The four bodies described the episode as "one of the biggest abuses of power in Fifa's history", noting that although stakeholders forced the withdrawal of the associated Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme, "the conditions that led to FFE remain". They said Infantino had "acknowledged the need for reform" but argued that "surface-level, process changes" explored in the scheme's aftermath were insufficient. They called instead for reform that restores "clear constitutional boundaries" within Fifa.

The leagues said this must include confidence that individual disciplinary matters remain "demonstrably insulated from political interference" — a reference to the cancelled suspension of United States forward Folarin Balogun at the World Cup, after US President Donald Trump called Infantino to ask for the ban to be reviewed. They said Fifa's governance problem "goes far beyond the role of one individual", questioning whether its president should hold regulatory, commercial and political power simultaneously without effective checks and balances, including agreement from affected stakeholders.