Social responsibility and education
Annual Report 2021
Football and its rich diversity provides us at FIFA with a unique opportunity to promote and embrace social responsibility and education while using the game’s unique power to create a global social impact that extends far beyond the pitch.
FIFA remains steadfastly committed to social responsibility and education as a fundamental part of its daily activities, programmes and tournaments as it strives to ensure that football is inclusive, safe and welcoming to all.
Human rights and anti-discrimination
Throughout 2021, FIFA continued to strengthen its human rights-related efforts in line with its Human Rights Policy and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
FIFA also pressed on with the due diligence processes for the upcoming flagship competitions. In relation to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, this included the expansion of labour rights monitoring systems to additional sectors involved in event delivery, such as hotels, security and transport, and implementing human rights and anti-discrimination programmes to ensure an inclusive and accessible qualification period and tournament environment for all, such as training and an anti-discrimination match monitoring programme across FIFA’s qualifiers.
FIFA also collaborated with the national human rights institutions of Australia and New Zealand on an assessment of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 and integrated human rights requirements in the host city selection process for the FIFA World Cup 2026™.
Supported by the World Health Organization, in August FIFA launched the #ReachOut mental health awareness campaign, using football’s power and reach to raise awareness of this pressing social issue. Throughout the process – which ran until November to coincide with World Mental Health Day – FIFA worked closely with external human rights experts and stakeholders.
In December, a working group of para-football experts was established to consider steps to raise awareness of thesport and provide additional guidance to FIFA’s 211 member associations on how to help grow disability football more globally.
Finally, the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Department assisted FIFA’s People & Culture team in a review of the latter’s recruitment processes, in keeping with FIFA’s pledge as an equal opportunity employer. This led to the establishment of an LGBTIQ+ staff network and the flying of the rainbow flag at the Home of FIFA to celebrate the Pride movement for the first time in its history.