Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics Within Fifa

 Corporate social responsibility is defined as “the obligation of an organization to serve the interests of multiple stakeholders, including society at large.”. It consists of daily decisions within a corporation, whether they be good or bad. Corporate social responsibility correlates with ethics. Ethics are frequently thought of as a moral compass, which can be looked at as established standards on actions that are considered right or wrong, as well as good or bad. Corporate social responsibility is significant for organizations because a company can be frowned upon by employees, investors, the public, and the press if it does not hold CSR to a certain standard. Like CSR, ethics also play a substantial role in organizations. Society is becoming more socially responsible, and the public is becoming more demanding for organizations transparency.

Every organization has a choice if corporate responsibility and ethical decision making is held to a high standard or not. I will be discussing and analyzing what level of CSR and ethical values FIFA has as an organization. FIFA stands for F©d©ration Internationale de Football Association. FIFA was founded on May 21, 1904, in Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, France. FIFA is based in Zerik, Switzerland, has 209 national associations and is a non-profit organization. Although FIFA is a non-profit organization, it makes its profits by selling its marketing rights. FIFA’s goal is to constantly improve football within society. In 2005, FIFA established its first corporate responsibility department which created programs, campaigns, and initiatives with internal and external partnerships. FIFA’s best three CSR programs are Football for the Planet, Football for Hope, and FIFA 11 for Health. Football for the Planet is an environmental program that strives to minimize the negative impacts on the environment and waste management. FIFA partnered with Streetfootballworld and began Football for Hope. It implements football as a tool to educate society on HIV/AIDS awareness, equality, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution to name a few. FIFA 11 for Health focuses on the education of children about health and physical activity. FIFA’s code of ethics is broken up into five categories: responsibility, inclusivity, transparency, integrity, and respect. FIFA adheres to their code of ethics with the help of five of their programs which are, Say no to Racism, FIFA Against Doping, Football for Health, My Game is Fair Play and Handshake for Peace. Say no to Racism is an anti-discrimination program that has been going on for 12 years. FIFA against doping which is set in place to suppress the use of drugs. Football for Health is set in place to assist FIFA against doping. Football for Health screens players pre-competition with tests to minimize ethical deviation. My game is fair play is a slogan FIFA created to encourage adhering by the rules of the game, promoting sportsmanship and being respectful towards everyone involved in/at the games. Handshake for Peace is the movement that promotes friendship, respect, peace, solidarity and fair play. All of the programs FIFA has created and funded support their goals on CSR and code of ethics.

However, FIFA has experienced an immense amount of ethical turmoil of their own throughout the years. In the 2002 FIFA World Cup (hosted in Japan) was one of the most controversial scandals. During this time South Korea played and beat Italy and Spain, but for an unjust reason. FIFA was accused of match-fixing as well as hiring under-qualified referees that allowed South Korea to play very rough and injure players on the opposing team without any repercussions. This strictly goes against FIFA’s code of ethics and violates their vow for transparency, responsibility, integrity, and respect. In addition, this goes against programs that FIFA created such as My Game is Fair Play and Handshake for Peace. FIFA is also known for their 2015 corruption scandal where fourteen people were arrested, seven of whom were executives for FIFA. The charges brought against these individuals were “racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering.”. The investigation against them uncovered $150 million dollars worth of bribes accepted by FIFA executives. The way FIFA conducted their business did not reflect their code of ethics whatsoever. FIFA was not acting in a transparent, responsible manner and had no integrity of respect for the game of soccer; which leaves me to believe the culture within FIFA isn’t strong. FIFA claims to be socially responsible, however, just this year FIFA’s President Gianni Inflantina admitted that the North Korean construction workers for the 2018 World Cup Stadium in Russia are working in “appalling labour conditions” which ranged from unpaid salaries for workers, human rights violations, as well as health and safety violations. Workers were unable to exploit these violations due to unauthorized employment documentation. FIFA claims to promote “moral obligation to help build a better world and also provide assistance in humanitarian operations” yet they did not implement that in their agenda during this time. FIFA’s lack of social responsibility and ethics resulted in multiple injuries for the workers and 17 deaths.

From an outsider knowing close to nothing about FIFA besides viewing their website, FIFA comes off as an ethical corporation with high social responsibility. However, after researching about FIFA how they conduct business, implement their values, and sustainability it’s not hard to come to a conclusion in regards to FIFA’s social responsibility and ethics. FIFA actions in how they conduct business seem to have little respect for interactional justice, commutative justice or procedural justice. Although they have many programs that adhere to be socially responsible, their actions prove otherwise. I believe FIFA’s corporate social responsibility approach is a defensive approach due to all of their programs they have initiated since 2005, but I don’t think that outweighs the scandals and integrity as well as ethical issues that FIFA has conducted. 

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