Press freedom in accreditation procedures
Initiative description: Systematically including principles of press freedom in accreditation procedures for media representatives to promote a distribution of accreditation quotas that protect the rights of media representatives to freedom of opinion and expression without discrimination.
It is of paramount importance to FIFA that it can enable the highest possible levels of press freedom in relation to its events. In total, 14,412 media representatives were accredited through the FIFA-led process. Separately, 8,750 media accreditations were issued through the host country-specific process.
Accreditation procedures
FIFA and the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) worked to ensure that the accreditation policy and procedures for journalists were open, transparent and informed by the highest principles of press freedom.
FIFA runs the accreditation processes for media representatives who cover its events providing access to the stadiums, official team training sites, the Main Media Centre and the International Broadcast Centre. FIFA-accredited media representatives could also apply to receive a Host Country Media Upgrade Pass which gave them access to the FIFA Fan Festival and the Host Country Media Centre as well as allowing them to film in tourist sites around the country without needing to request additional permits.
To obtain media accreditation, media representatives had to register on the FIFA Media Hub and have a unique electronic control key provided by their football association. As in previous FIFA World Cup™ tournaments, member associations were allotted a certain number of press and photographer accreditations. This quota was based on findings from previous tournaments and on whether the association concerned had qualified for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. Comprehensive directions for using the quota management system were provided by FIFA to the member associations’ media departments to assign and distribute the unique electronic control keys. Each member association was strongly encouraged to work with its national sports journalists’ association or other professional organisations in the country to equitably allocate the quota among press reporters and photographers. Once registered on the Media Hub, media representatives could then apply for accreditation, media tickets and filming permits.
Tournament organisers implemented a streamlined filming permission policy and associated procedures to provide applicants with a single-application procedure to generate their (Hayya) entry permit, Nationwide Filming and Photography Permit and Hand Carry Equipment Clearance. This helped to ensure that journalists were able to obtain filming permits easily and film freely in the country. There was no interference whatsoever in relation to the content of the reporting. The only filming exceptions were military or diplomatic facilities; privately-owned properties; government, education and health facilities; and places of worship, for which prior approval from the owner was required, as well as at sites with signs or security staff prohibiting photography/videography. The permit did not cover filming with drones.
The enforcement of the policy and procedures are deemed to have worked well. In the days leading up to the tournament and during the event, some instances were of journalists being told not to film in public spaces by local security personnel who had not been fully informed of the event-time measures. These incidents were addressed. As a response, the SC further enhanced its communication with security personnel in non-competition venues about the filming permission rules.
A total of three submissions from journalists alleging undue restrictions to their reporting were submitted through the FIFA Human Rights Grievance Mechanism. One of the three submissions concerned a situation that occurred about a year before the tournament, whilst the other two happened during the competition. All three cases were followed up with direct dialogue with the complainants and engagement with host country authorities.
For more information, please see the protection of human rights defenders and media and FIFA human rights grievance mechanism web pages of this report.