ABSTRACT

The FIFA motto ‘For the World. For the Game’ implicitly claims global inclusivity and elevates it to a core tenet for capacity building within the football governing body. This study, however, argues that the structure of the global body contributes to the exclusion of certain territories and their residents by acting as a gatekeeper and arbitrarily treating territories differently through changing membership criteria. This paper first discusses the phenomenon of football sovereignty and its relationship to political sovereignty. It demonstrates that there is no perfect correlation between the two and that geo-political, structural, financial, logistical, and/or historic reasons contribute towards certain territories being excluded from FIFA. The paper concludes by discussing potential strategies for resolving the inconsistencies in FIFA’s membership criteria, and particular emphasis is made on the power and role of International Sport Governing Bodies like FIFA in perpetuating these inconsistencies. However, the current exclusionary nature is likely to continue, and FIFA will remain hesitant to let in any non-UN members.

摘要

国际足联的座右铭是“为了世界。For the Game' 含蓄地声称具有全球包容性，并将其提升为足球管理机构内能力建设的核心原则。然而，这项研究认为，全球机构的结构通过充当守门人并通过改变成员资格标准来任意区别对待领土，从而导致将某些领土及其居民排除在外。本文首先讨论了足球主权现象及其与政治主权的关系。它表明两者之间没有完美的相关性，地缘政治、结构、金融、后勤和/或历史原因导致某些地区被排除在国际足联之外。本文最后讨论了解决国际足联成员资格标准不一致的潜在策略，并特别强调了国际足联等国际体育管理机构在延续这些不一致方面的权力和作用。然而，目前的排他性很可能会持续下去，国际足联将仍然犹豫是否允许任何非联合国成员进入。