GENEVA (ILO News) – The ILO welcomed discussions with the World League Forum (WLF) and the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPRO) to further address decent work issues in the football sector professional.
The meeting, which took place on January 12 at ILO headquarters in Geneva, was attended by ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo and the Secretaries-General of both organizations, Jérôme Perlemuter (WLF) and Jonas Baer- Hoffmann (FIFPRO), respectively.
The aim was to discuss possible future cooperation between the ILO and the social partners in the professional football sector and to provide an update on the Global Labor Agreement (GLA) signed between FIFPRO and the World Leagues Forum in September 2022.
The GLA is an important step forward in addressing decent work issues in sport and promoting the sustainability of the football industry. It does so by building on a key pillar of the ILO’s approach to decent work: social dialogue.”
Gilbert F. Houngbo, Director-General of the ILO
The GLA is a pioneering agreement that aims to stabilize the professional football environment by strengthening employer and employee representatives globally and promoting fair conditions of employment in football. It encompasses FIFPRO’s network of 66 national player unions, which together represent more than 60,000 professional footballers, and the WLF group of 44 national leagues comprising some 1,100 clubs.
“The GLA is an important step forward in addressing decent work issues in sport and promoting the sustainability of the football industry. It does so by building on a key pillar of the ILO’s approach to decent work: social dialogue,” said ILO Director General Gilbert F. Houngbo. “Some of the initiatives that your two organizations have already taken under the GLA, including head injury management, demonstrate that dialogue can lead to a common vision on athlete protection and sport development,” he added. he.
“Employer-employee relations must occupy an important place in decision-making in international football. Issues such as schedule overload and player health must be addressed collectively. Many thanks to the ILO and its Director General Houngo for their continued support,” said Jerome Perlemuter, Secretary General of the World Leagues Forum, after the meeting.
“Cooperation with and support for the ILO is essential at national, regional and international level to promote fundamental rights at work. Managing the future of work requires an ever closer dialogue between employers and employees, and we are pleased that the GLA been able to show the Director General the progress made in occupational health and safety in just a few months of existence of this new international negotiating framework,” said FIFPRO Secretary General Jonas Baer-Hoffman.
The GLA follows the fundamental principles and rights at work established by the ILO in the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which was amended in 2022. It is also in line with the Points of Consensus of the Dialogue Forum ILO Conference on Decent Work in the World of Sport (2020). Specific reference is also made to the ILO Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and the ILO Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98). .