FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter and UEFA President Lennart Johansson met in Zurich today (26 October 2006) to discuss how to further improve the co-operation between the two organisations in several areas, and in particular in the defence of the autonomy of football.

The pressure on football’s governing bodies is increasing. This is the case for FIFA, as well as for the confederations and FIFA’s member associations. Major clubs, especially in Europe, economic and commercial forces, players’ agents, and in some cases governments in various parts of the world are trying to intervene in football governance. In this sense, football has to defend its position.

With this in mind, special attention was given to the recently presented Independent European Sports Review (IESR) and the two Presidents have come to the following common conclusions on the report:

We support the key messages in the report, which underlines the autonomy of sport and its self-regulation based on the principle of subsidiarity, where clear guidelines drawn up by the sport itself decide who is doing what at world level as well as at the level of the confederations and the member associations.

We support the need for legal certainty and a clear definition of the borderline between governmental and sporting responsibilities.

We understand and accept the requests of political institutions towards sport’s governing bodies regarding the need for proper governance and we are prepared to take upon ourselves this responsibility in football.

We consider that there is no need for the European Union to establish a European Sports Agency because we think it will only increase bureaucracy and the risk of political intervention in sport.

We are convinced that FIFA and UEFA together can find a sound agreement between football and the political authorities in Europe and in the rest of the world on how to co-operate for the good of the development of our sport.

In order to find the best solutions for the open issues at hand, it is vital that the continued work on the IESR integrates the views of football’s governing bodies.

Finally, the two Presidents agreed that continuity in football leadership is important, especially in these challenging times.