The Premier League Joins Three European Leagues Demanding 'Fundamental' Fifa Reform

The Premier League has joined three of its top European counterparts in calling for "fundamental" reform of the way Fifa is run, BBC Sport reported.

That alignment is the news. The competitions that generate the largest share of club football's revenue are now jointly disputing the governance of the body that sets the calendar they have to play inside.

The dispute underneath the word "fundamental"

Fifa's authority over the international match calendar is the point where a governing body's decisions land directly on a club's balance sheet. Expanded international tournaments take players out of domestic competitions that pay their wages, and the clubs carry the injury risk and the insurance cost without a corresponding share of the revenue.

A demand for structural reform, rather than a complaint about a particular fixture list, is a move from arguing inside the system to arguing about who controls it.

Why this reaches Addis Abeba

Fifa's governance is one-member-one-vote, and that is precisely what the wealthy European leagues do not control. The 211 member associations — the Ethiopian Football Federation among them — hold the votes, and Fifa's development funding flows to those same associations.

Any reform that shifts power toward the leagues generating the money necessarily shifts it away from the federations receiving it. For African federations that depend on Fifa's development programmes for facilities, coaching and competition costs, a restructuring of who decides at Fifa is a question about the money, not about European fixture congestion.

Open

BBC Sport's report does not name the three other leagues, specify which reforms are being demanded, or say whether the leagues have set a deadline or a mechanism. Fifa's response is not recorded in the report fact.et has seen, and no African confederation or federation has publicly responded.

Sources: BBC Sport, 25 September 2026