European Leagues has filed an expanded complaint to the European Commission accusing FIFA of "abusive conduct" — and this time, they're making it explicitly about women's football.
The body, whose members include the English and Spanish women's leagues as full members and the French, German and Italian leagues as associates, says FIFA's grip on the international calendar is choking the financial sustainability of domestic competitions and putting player welfare at risk. Those aren't vague concerns. Fixture congestion, compressed schedules, and the creeping expansion of FIFA's own competitions have real consequences for clubs trying to build coherent seasons — and for players grinding through an increasingly relentless calendar.
The same fight, a different competition
European Leagues made an initial complaint in 2024 targeting the expanded men's World Cup and Club World Cup formats. That complaint has gone nowhere fast. So they've widened the scope, drawing a direct line between FIFA's regulatory power and its commercial agenda in women's football.
The language in their statement is pointed: "FIFA consistently uses its regulatory power to favor its own competition and commercial interests to the detriment of women's football and of European national leagues." They also referenced the collapsed FIFA Forward Enterprise initiative — Gianni Infantino's attempt to sell stakes in FIFA competitions including the World Cup — as evidence of how financial motivations distort the governance process. The fact that plan was eventually abandoned doesn't wipe out the concern about why it was proposed in the first place.
The timing matters. Women's football is finally generating real commercial value across Europe's top leagues. Any structural interference that disrupts league calendars doesn't just frustrate administrators — it destabilises the investment case that clubs and broadcasters are building around the women's game right now.
FIFPRO quietly steps back
There's a notable absence from this latest complaint. Players' union FIFPRO Europe, which joined the original 2024 filing, has withdrawn from formal legal action against FIFA entirely. Their reasoning: a cooperation deal signed with FIFA in June, which included an offer to negotiate on the calendar. FIFA had spent the previous year dealing with a separate, non-recognised group with past FIFPRO ties — which tells you something about how seriously it was taking the union's concerns.
European Leagues is now pressing this case alone. Whether the EU bureaucratic machine moves any faster on a women's football complaint than it did on the men's version is another question entirely. The original 2024 filing is still crawling through the system.
FIFA has not yet responded publicly to the expanded complaint.
