Political neutrality occupies a central place in the constitutional architecture of international sports governance. Within the Olympic Movement, neutrality is described as a “universal fundamental ethical principle” embedded in the International Olympic Committee’s ethics framework and closely linked to the principle of universality. International sporting organisations (ISOs) frequently portray themselves as institutions capable of transcending geopolitical divisions, presenting global sport as a platform through which athletes and states may interact independently of the political conflicts that structure the international system.
In February 2026, the Board of Peace (the Board), a Trump-backed international organisation established in January 2026 to oversee post-conflict reconstruction in Gaza, operating outside the United Nations framework, and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) concluded a strategic agreement, under which FIFA agreed to serve as a donor to the Board. This collaboration raises questions as to the applicability of political neutrality to institutions that enforce it. The International Olympic Committee’s response to the situation is pertinent. When asked whether Gianni Infantino’s appearance at the Board’s inaugural meeting constituted a breach of neutrality, the IOC answered in the negative.
Neutrality in international sport has been constructed primarily as a regulatory burden on athletes, prohibiting political expression during competition, rather than on the ISOs that govern them. It is precisely this structural asymmetry that has allowed this collaboration to escape any legal scrutiny. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) serves as the primary dispute-resolution forum in international sport. However, its jurisdiction under Article 56 of the FIFA Statutes is limited to disputes between FIFA and its members, clubs, players, and officials, and does not extend to challenges to FIFA’s own institutional conduct. No external adjudicatory body holds compulsory jurisdiction to sanction FIFA or the IOC for breaches of their own neutrality commitments, rendering the consequence of such violations one of pure institutional impunity rather than any mandated legal liability. Compelled by a broader critique of the Board’s constitutionality, the piece advances a two-part argument. Firstly, it problematises the existing neutrality framework which does not require FIFA to avoid this collaboration, leaving ISOs free to engage politically without consequence. Secondly, it argues that, even setting aside the neutrality question, FIFA’s engagement with the Board violates the human rights obligations it has acknowledged.
Structural Asymmetry in Sporting Neutrality
Historically, neutrality in international sport has been enforced primarily through restrictions on athlete conduct. The clearest expression of this approach is Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which prohibits political demonstrations within Olympic venues. Its application is illustrated by the sanctions imposed on Tommie Smith and John Carlos and more recently when the Union of European Football Associations declined a request to illuminate Munich’s Allianz Arena in rainbow colours during UEFA Euro 2020.
Yet the application of neutrality becomes far less clear when attention shifts from athletes to governing institutions themselves, as the recommendations to Rule 50 also highlight. While athletes are expected to exercise strict restraint in their political expression, ISOs have historically exercised considerable discretion in determining when to engage with political issues.
At a statutory level, although fundamental principle 5 of the Olympic Charter as well as mission 5 of the Olympic Charter both talk about political neutrality and the establishment of sporting autonomy, rule 50 of the charter restricts the applicability of these principles to mere advertising of political opinions in Olympic competitive spaces through player merchandise, etc. This narrow regulatory focus reduces neutrality to a question of athlete expression rather than institutional conduct. The result is a structural disjunction between the Charter’s broad normative commitment to political neutrality and its limited statutory implementation. Such a gap creates space for neutrality to be selectively enforced, enabling instances where political engagement by ISOs escape scrutiny.
FIFA’s participation in the Board, launched in connection with diplomatic efforts under the administration of Donald Trump, has been presented as a platform to promote peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction through sport and development programmes, with early discussions focusing on reconstruction efforts in Gaza. Although presented in humanitarian terms, this engagement situates FIFA within a broader diplomatic association with a particular political administration. It illustrates how international sporting bodies may become embedded in geopolitical initiatives without formally breaching existing neutrality rules. This dynamic is reflected in the structure of FIFA’s regulatory framework as well. The FIFA Statutes formally do recognise neutrality as a governing principle. Article 4(2) provides that FIFA “remains neutral in matters of politics and religion.” Similarly, Article 15(a) requires member associations to adopt statutes that ensure neutrality in matters of politics and religion. Article 15(c) further obliges them to maintain institutional independence and avoid political interference. Yet these provisions primarily frame neutrality as a mechanism for safeguarding football governance from external political influence rather than as a comprehensive constraint on FIFA’s own institutional engagements and initiatives. As such, the current asymmetrical regime raises scepticisms of accountability. While Article 4(2) nominally binds FIFA directly, it preserves FIFA’s discretion to depart from neutrality where matters engage its statutory objectives, effectively rendering neutrality a default position rather than an absolute constraint. Article 15 compounds this dynamic by establishing a framework in which FIFA exercises oversight over members’ political conduct while facing no equivalent external check on its own. The result is a regulatory architecture that protects football from politics without meaningfully constraining FIFA’s own political engagements, creating the ‘structural asymmetry.’
The political nature of the collaboration becomes clearer when the Board’s institutional structure is taken into account. The Board’s governance structure departs from the normative conception of sovereign equality embedded in the UN Charter. This violation manifests in the Board’s reported governance arrangements under Article 2.2(c) of the Board’s Charter, which conditions permanent participation on substantial financial contributions while remaining subject to the continuing discretion of its chairman, Donald J. Trump, according to Article 3.2(a) of the Board’s Charter (‘Charter’). Therefore, the Board transforms the agency within the global security order into a capacity-based ladder in which political alignment matters. Consistent with this structure, rather than operating as a narrowly defined mechanism authorised to address the Gaza conflict, the Charter establishes a broader institutional arrangement designed to operate alongside, and potentially in competition with, established multilateral frameworks for international peace and security. This, in effect, positions the Board less as a focused peacebuilding mechanism and more as a platform embedded within the geopolitical intent of the United States.
In addition to this manifestation of the inherent statutory asymmetry, FIFA’s collaboration with the Board cannot be assessed independently of the Board’s institutional character. UN experts have raised concerns regarding the human rights records of several states central to the Board’s governance. As the following section demonstrates, this institutional context is not incidental, it is precisely what renders FIFA’s otherwise ‘unprohibited’ political engagement consequential.
The Violation of the International Human Rights Regime & FIFA Statutes
The agreement is in contravention of the FIFA Statutes and other applicable international rules to which the institution remains obliged. While primarily registered and recognised under Article 60 Swiss Civil Code as an association with political, religious, scientific, cultural, charitable, social or non-commercial purposes. The declaration of its non-profit associative character also accrues the institution various tax exemptions. Although FIFA derives its legal status from Swiss domestic law, its activities operate at a global level. Through its authority over competitions, recognition of national associations, and regulatory control of the sport, FIFA plays a significant role in governing international football. Thus, it plays a key role in regulating international sporting affairs to some degree.
In the Reparations for Injuries case, the International Court of Justice recognised that entities other than States may possess international legal personality where required by their functions. While this reasoning does not directly apply to FIFA, it supports the broader point that international law is not confined strictly to States. Given FIFA’s transnational regulatory influence, at times extending beyond and even displacing domestic legal frameworks, as noted by Franck Latty, it is appropriate to assess its conduct against the international standards it has undertaken to respect.
In pursuance of such recognition, this obligation of FIFA and the corpus of international regulatory mechanisms it governs and is governed by is referred to as ‘lex-fifa.’ Besides, international instruments, FIFA’s own actions remain bound by its statute, which, under Article 2, expressly provides that humanitarian values must guide its conduct. The 2016 amendment to the FIFA Statute also acknowledges the paramount nature of human rights and provides, under Article 3, that the organisation “is committed to respect all internationally recognised human rights….” The adherence to such principles also stems from the horizontal application of the human rights regime to private entities such as FIFA. In that regard, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (‘Guiding Principles’) remain a significant instrument regulating corporations.
In fact, FIFA has previously acknowledged the important place of such provisions before the Swiss National Contact Point and acquiesced to accepting responsibility for human rights violations. This position is further reinforced by a report prepared by John Ruggie, commissioned by FIFA, which identifies the Guiding Principles as the authoritative standard applicable to FIFA given its global activities. The framework mandates that the requirement of the organisation contributing to such violation is not a prerequisite, and as such, its obligations extend beyond its control, such that it seeks to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to its operations, products or services by its business relationships, even if FIFA has not contributed to those impacts.
Moreover, under Section 4 of FIFA’s Human Rights Policy (‘the policy’), enacted in 2017, the organisation has expressed its utmost commitment to go beyond its responsibility to respect human rights as posited under the Guiding Principles and to embrace all internationally recognised human rights. Section 2 also considers such rights with respect to specific groups or populations that require special attention, including ethnic, national, and linguistic minorities, among others. This commitment to human rights extends to all FIFA bodies and officials and must be upheld even when it conflicts with domestic laws, as set out in Sections 13 and 7 of the Policy. In the present case, the Board not only contravenes the international order, but, as opined by UN Experts, also contravenes a human rights-based approach. Given this problematisation of its character, legitimacy and the implication of human rights violations, the recent agreement between the Board and FIFA remains violative of key articles under both the FIFA Statute and its Human Rights Policy.
Furthermore, Article 4 of the FIFA Statute enshrines the principle of non-discrimination which is reiterated in Article 5 of the Policy, thereby prohibiting discrimination based on nationality. This principle of non-discrimination has been reiterated to say that the obligation is transformative and extends to actions that must be undertaken in pursuance of decisions of the International Courts. For instance, obligations accrued to FIFA post the Occupied Palestinian Territory Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice. However, the Board retains absolute authority to decide membership as per Article 2.1, which is based on both an exclusion of non-allied states and mandates an economic capacity-based hierarchy (see Article 2.2(c)), thus violating the neutrality principle and the clause on non-discrimination.
In the Shadow of Power, Neutrality Fails, Again
The Board of Peace risks transforming global security into a pay-to-play system, replacing shared legal frameworks, and placing discretion in the hands of the powerful. It is precisely this system that FIFA, the organiser of the tournament that the United States will host in 2026, has chosen to legitimise. FIFA, by collaborating with the Board, actualises the statutory asymmetry vis-à-vis the principle of neutrality. But in doing so, it also lends institutional legitimacy to a structure that undermines the very collective security order that neutrality exists to protect. The question in the future is whether ISOs will be held to the commitments they have made and the principles they deploy, or whether proximity to power will continue to excuse abandoning both.
Arjun Singh is a third year law student.
Meraj Ahmad is a third year law student at WBNUJS.