FIFA and the United Nations are working together to launch a global investigative network to tackle sexual abuse across all sports, according to The Guardian.
The British newspaper revealed that the details were mentioned in a report commissioned by FIFA and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The initiative is a response to the “challenging learnings of complex, devastating and serious external abuses in Afghanistan and Haiti football”.
In June 2019, the former Afghan Football Association president Keramuddin Karim was banned for life by FIFA's ethics committee when it was revealed that he had sexually abused players of the Afghanistan women's national team.
The next year, Haiti FA president Yves Jean-Bart was also banned for life after he was accused of sexually harassing women players, including minors.
The new body, expected to be launched next year, will provide “trusted and accessible reporting lines” to report abuse in sport and will have a network of investigators who will be linked to the local police and Interpol.
Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are also expected to get support from the new body. Two proposed names for the body, according to the report, are the International Safe Sport Agency and the International Safe Sport Centre.
“The objective is to establish an independent, multi-sports, multi-agency, international entity to help sports judicial bodies investigate and appropriately manage cases of abuse using a survivor-centred approach,” a FIFA spokesperson told The Guardian.
Several governments and sports federations have been included in the discussions and possible locations for the new body could be the Netherlands, France, Nairobi, or Singapore, although Switzerland is the overwhelming favourite as it is home to the 45 international sporting federations and numerous humanitarian organisations.
Despite the positive development, Human Rights Watch and FIFPRO have questioned FIFA's involvement as it has a poor track record in tackling abuse.
“Fifa does not have a fit-for-purpose system that allows care and protection of survivors; even when given the chance to do things right, the system is still badly skewed against survivors,” said HRW's Minky Worden.
