GENEVA: A sports integrity advocate has warned of a “fundamental contradiction” at the heart of modern sports, insisting governing bodies must accept independent scrutiny if they wish to retain global trust and autonomy.
Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, co-founder and chief executive of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), said organisations cannot ask for billions in investment and complete independence while shunning standard checks and balances.
Wading into the ongoing governance crisis at Fifa, de Medeiros argued that global football’s governing body must prove its administration is worthy of the authority placed in it.
The comments follow mounting pressure on Fifa president Gianni Infantino, who recently scrapped a controversial plan to sell off stakes in the organisation’s competitions to private investors. Infantino continues to face calls to step down, with Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin among those urging him to resign or face a leadership battle at the upcoming Fifa Congress.
“Sport asks governments to respect its autonomy. It asks sponsors, broadcasters and investors to channel billions of dollars into its competitions. It asks athletes to entrust their careers to clubs, and supporters to give it something even more valuable than money: their loyalty, passion and trust,” said de Medeiros.
“These expectations are legitimate. But they carry an equally legitimate responsibility. If sport claims the autonomy to govern itself, it must be prepared to demonstrate, independently and credibly, that it governs itself well. It is how the world works.”
He pointed out that nations and major financial sectors routinely submit to rigorous independent oversight. He highlighted how Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries undergo institutional peer reviews, the International Monetary Fund conducts economic surveillance, and aviation bodies such as International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) enforce global safety standards.
“These are not isolated examples,” de Medeiros said. ”
Collectively, they demonstrate the rule: across modern economies and societies, standards, scrutiny and independent verification are fundamental to accountability and trust.
“If this is how the world works, why should sport be the exception?”
Drawing on nearly three decades of experience in legal affairs and football administration, de Medeiros insisted he remains a “staunch defender” of sporting autonomy to prevent political interference. However, he stressed that autonomy was never intended as immunity.
“There is no contradiction between autonomy and independent scrutiny,” he said. “If sport asks governments not to intervene, it should be able to demonstrate objectively why intervention is unnecessary.”
Reflecting on the turmoil surrounding Fifa, de Medeiros suggested that structural reform alone is insufficient. He noted that proposals currently circulating, such as presidential rotation and decentralisation, resemble reforms championed 30 years ago by former Uefa president Lennart Johansson.
“Leadership can change. But none of it, by itself, resolves the central question of accountability,” he warned.
“Lasting reform requires effective checks and balances, transparency and genuinely independent scrutiny. No institution exercising significant power should be the sole judge of its own integrity.”
Calling for reviews that are genuinely impartial, de Medeiros concluded that self-assessment cannot substitute for verified evidence.
“Calling a review independent does not make it so,” he added.
“There is a fundamental difference between an institution asserting that it meets the required standards and an independent, competent and impartial process examining the evidence and determining whether it actually does.
“One is assertion. The other is evidence.”
