The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Human Rights Policy states: “Guided by its human rights approach, FIFA embeds its commitment throughout the organisation and engages in an ongoing due diligence process to identify, address, evaluate and communicate the risks of involvement with adverse human rights impacts.” It also states that, “FIFA will constructively engage with relevant authorities and other stakeholders and make every effort to uphold its international human rights responsibilities.”...

In April 2016, FIFA adopted the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and revised its own Statutes to include its responsibility to respect human rights in article 3 of the FIFA governing Statutes (non-discrimination was already long enshrined in article 4). Its Statutes state: “FIFA is committed to respecting all internationally recognized human rights and shall strive to promote the protection of these rights.” FIFA “bodies and officials must observe the Statutes, regulations, decisions and Code of Ethics of FIFA in their activities.”

In the 2015-2018 timeframe, FIFA took concrete steps to identify human rights abuses in its operations, and commit to remedying them.  In September 2016, FIFA created and staffed a Human Rights Manager (now director) position to develop its human rights-related work, created the roles of Child Protection and Safeguarding Manager, and set up a system by which whistleblowers, athletes and human rights activists could directly report abuse to FIFA officials. In 2016, FIFA established an independent Human Rights Advisory Board to provide advice and report on FIFA’s implementation of its human rights commitments. FIFA did not renew the mandate for the advisory board in March 2021.

In June 2017, following adoption by the FIFA Council in May 2017, FIFA adopted and published its Human Rights Policy stating that human rights commitments are binding on all FIFA bodies and officials...