Expertise

FIFA’s commitment to support its member associations reaches far outside the pitch and looks to help the national federations to improve crucial managerial aspects of their every-day functioning.

As the governing body of world football, FIFA is in a privileged position to observe and evaluate the issues and trends of the sport, and as such, has built an extensive network of expertise over the years. This expertise is proposed to the member associations to support them in their change processes, in the frame of several FIFA development programmes.

Performance

In 2011, FIFA officially launched the PERFORMANCE programme. The programme looks to strengthen the organisational capacities of a national association, with a specific methodology designed during a two year pilot period from 2009 to 2011, where the principle of FIFA’s support were created: after a thorough evaluation of the association’s structure and processes, together with the political leadership and the administration, the association and FIFA agree on a strategic roadmap towards improving in key areas of the association’s mission. FIFA then pledges to provide assistance to the association along the steps of the roadmap – in the form of expertise (international specialist’s consultants) or financial support on case to case basis.

Facilities

Football installations are crucial to the game’s development in any country, as without good pitches and general football infrastructures, the conditions to improve are never optimal. FIFA provides support to its members to improve, develop and maintain their football infrastructure – by providing expertise for new pitches or infrastructure projects, or by supporting their dedicated staff to better maintain the existing ones.

Connect

The FIFA Connect programme, approved in 2011 by the FIFA Executive Committee, aims to have all individuals involved in football to be registered worldwide by the year 2019.

To this end, FIFA will provide support to all 209 member associations, whether they are currently registering individuals systematically or not, to reach this objective in the given timeframe. Connect takes into account the current situation (existing systems, paper-based registration, existing processes, limitation to professional level etc.) and looks to build upon it to bring the association to a common standard.

Additionally, FIFA is creating a worldwide data standard that will apply in all 209 associations, allowing interconnection of systems – for international transfers – and the adoption of an unique ID for every individual registered. This will in particular be of crucial importance for matters such as minor protection, as well as solidarity mechanisms in case of transfers.