“To be global, you need to be local,” FIFA President tells Member Associations Division staff members
Focus on three core areas: development, competitions, infrastructure
FIFA's Secretary General Mattias Grafström, Chief of Global Football Development Arsène Wenger and Chief Women’s Football Officer Dame Sarai Bareman also address attendees
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has highlighted the crucial role FIFA’s Member Associations (MA) Division plays in making football truly global at a three-day workshop for the division’s collaborators at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
Some 70 members of the MA Division gathered at the Home of FIFA to not only forge closer personal and professional ties, but also exchange and reflect on the division’s journey so far, its future direction and look closely at what President Infantino referred to as the “three core focus areas in terms of working with our key stakeholders”: development, competitions and infrastructure.
With 11 regional development offices around the world from Auckland, New Zealand, to Christ Church in Barbados and Johannesburg, South Africa, to New Delhi, India, the MA Division is coordinated from its base in the French capital, Paris, after becoming the first FIFA division to be located outside of the organisation’s Swiss base.
This gives FIFA an on-the-ground presence in all six global confederations and as FIFA’s closest professional and geographical connection to the 211 FIFA Member Associations, the FIFA President told the workshop attendees the MA Division has a crucial role in unifying the global football community.
“To be global, you need to be local. We need to be present everywhere,” Mr Infantino explained in a Q&A session. “They should all feel part of FIFA. Every federation is part of FIFA.”
“This is, maybe, something that we have not yet achieved, and that we should achieve, and the FIFA Series is going in this direction, the competitions, youth competitions and so on are going in this direction. But with your presence in the different offices all over the world, I think you can do a lot in making the federations, the associations, feel that they are FIFA themselves.”
MA Division & Regional Offices - Annual Gathering in Zurich
The FIFA Series™ was introduced in March 2024 and gave a number of men’s senior national teams their first opportunity to face opposition beyond their confederation. It is just one example of how FIFA is providing more MAs with openings to take a leading role in organising and playing in its competitions and tournaments in line with its stated Strategic Objecitves for the Global Game: 2023-2027.
While the FIFA U-17 World Cup™ and the FIFA Women’s U-17 World Cup™ have both been made expanded annual competitions as of 2025, the Dominican Republic will host their first FIFA with the latter’s final 16-team edition next month. Uzbekistan became the first Central Asian country to host a FIFA tournament when the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2024™ kicked off in September and the Philippines will provide the stage for next year’s inaugural women’s edition.
FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström pinpointed the MA Division’s proximity to the stakeholders as giving them a unique opportunity to encourage federations who had never previously thought of doing so to put themselves forward as potential tournament hosts and contribute to growing the game globally.
“There are many opportunities where we should push for more hosting opportunities because by hosting tournaments, you give football to the fans there,” he said. “Co-hosting can give smaller countries the opportunity to organise and this is certainly an area where – by us increasing the number of competitions we have – we will continue giving more opportunities, and it will push the rest as well, the infrastructure, the competitions. So, this is certainly part of our strategy.”
The MA Division’s four regional directors, Sanjeevan Balasingam (Asia & Oceania), Jair Bertoni (Americas), Gelson Fernandes (Africa) and Elkhan Mammadov (Europe), gave presentations detailing the vision of their respective subdivisions and Tom Gorissen, Director MA Services, and Strategic Projects & MA Governance Director Nodar Akhalkatsi also laid out their plans for reinforcing and enhancing collaboration with local MAs.
An innovative method of doing this is the freshly launched FIFA Campus, an online learning hub aimed at developing education and capacity-building within football administration around the world. Alongside the FIFA Forward Development Programme, which funds MAs’ development projects, it will be a primary tool in the division’s work in supporting MAs as they shape the face of football in their own country.
In addition to aligning on how it will work even more closely with their key stakeholders, the workshop also enabled the MA Division to form still stronger links with other departments within FIFA and FIFA Chief of Global Football Development Arsène Wenger addressed participants as did Dame Sarai Bareman, FIFA Chief Women’s Football Officer, with the goal of ensuring a joined-up approach.
“We took on board a lot of information, a lot of guidance on how the Member Associations Division can have a greater impact of the future development of football. I’m grateful to our top management for giving us so much time, because that is what gives us energy to go further, to be stronger, together,” explained Kenny Jean-Marie, FIFA Chief Member Associations Officer.
“A great cycle is ending, another one is starting with some great projects in the pipeline, whether it be the management of FIFA Forward, the first FIFA Club World Cup next season, or the hosting of the FIFA Series in 2026. So there are a lot of things on the boil that the Member Associations Division is going to take on with relish, because it’s our role to be ambassadors for our member associations, to be the “window-openers” for our stakeholders, the 211 FIFA Member Associations, who will always be welcome here.”