A coalition of human rights campaigners, fans’ groups and governance experts has warned there is no point changing who runs FIFA if you do not change FIFA itself.While the main debate about FIFA has moved from last week’s revelations about a secret plan to sell a stake in its competitions, including the World Cup, to private investors, to whether its president Gianni Infantino can survive the collapse of that project, the Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA) wants the game to focus on the governing body’s repeated failures to address human rights issues and corruption.In a media release issued on Thursday, SRA executive director Andrea Florence said: “The person who leads FIFA matters a great deal, but the bigger problem is systemic. The landscape for human rights, transparency and good governance will not improve if FIFA’s structures are not addressed.“This crisis must spur long-overdue reforms to finally embed human rights protections at the heart of world football. Only a systemic transformation that addresses the many abuses linked to FIFA’s operations will prevent history repeating itself.”FIFA president Gianni Infantino held a meeting of his organization’s leadership in Morocco on Thursday, where he appeared to entrench his leadership (Abdelmajid Bziouat / AFP via Getty Images)The SRA, whose membership includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Trade Union Confederation, believes this is FIFA’s most serious emergency since the 2015 “FIFAgate” corruption scandal that brought down former president Sepp Blatter and dozens of senior officials. And it notes that FIFA, under Infantino’s watch, was meant to have changed.“We have seen enough crises at FIFA to know that simply replacing leadership is not enough,” said Ronan Evain, executive director of Football Supporters Europe.“FIFA needs systemic reform grounded in a clear roadmap for the organisation’s work on human rights and good governance. This should include a full review and restructure of the FIFA Ethics Committee and a time-bound human rights strategy that has clear objectives and centers the rights of everyone impacted by its tournaments and operations.”The SRA points out that Infantino changed FIFA’s statutes in 2016 to include human rights protections, adopted a human rights policy and created an independent Human Rights Advisory Board, which produced five reports but was then disbanded, with most of their recommendations never implemented.“Now is the moment for FIFA to re-establish an independent human rights advisory body to oversee good governance, transparency and human rights – and ensure the credibility of its approach moving forwards,” said Tor Dolvik, special adviser at Transparency International Norway.SRA also challenges Infantino’s repeated claims that the most recent World Cup was the “most inclusive” in history, noting the various issues some nations’ fans faced with visas, the high price of tickets and his “worryingly close relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump”, who received a FIFA Peace Prize in December.But Human Rights Watch director Minky Worden also claimed that FIFA has still not financially compensated the families of “thousands of migrant workers who died to deliver” the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which raises grave concerns about the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia.FIFA is still under pressure to provide compensation to families of deceased migrant workers from the World Cup in Qatar four years ago (Michael Steele/Getty Images)“The global football community has finally shown that it can mobilize to stand up to FIFA when it deems an issue to be important enough,” said Amnesty International’s regional director for Europe Steve Cockburn.“Whether or not this crisis leads to genuine change at FIFA can be measured by workers in Qatar finally receiving compensation, meaningful human rights safeguards being introduced for future World Cups, and independent oversight systems being given real teeth.”Given all these concerns — and several others, including Infantino’s dislike of media scrutiny — the alliance has a five-step plan for a more positive, transparent and better-run FIFA.