"Update Statement from the FIFA Human Rights Advisory Board, May 2018"

In [the short update statement] we provide a summary of the time sensitive advice we have given FIFA regarding the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia and evaluation of the bids for the FIFA World Cup 2026, and also of our views on the progress being made by FIFA in these areas... The Board and the secretariat have been closely tracking FIFA’s progress against the 33 specific recommendations from our September 2017 report. FIFA has met a number of those recommendations already, and implementation is ongoing or at advanced stages in many other cases.

...[With the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia]... FIFA has stepped up its efforts to work in collaboration with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and other parties to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) supporting the decent work monitoring system... One outstanding area... is the need for greater transparency about the overall outcomes of the decent work monitoring system, including fatalities... FIFA intends to publish a “lessons learned” review of the decent work monitoring system following the conclusion of the FIFA World Cup 2018... FIFA worked with a leading human rights defenders’ advocacy group to develop a policy framework, including a complaints mechanism, to prevent and address risks to human rights defenders and media representatives. The mechanism was formally launched on 29 May, 2018. The World Cup means that it will be tested in real time as issues arise and FIFA will need to dedicate the necessary time and resources to responding to them... The final bidding requirements for the FIFA World Cup 2026 included, in our view, the most robust set of human rights expectations by any global sporting body to date.