According to our information, Fifa is considering closing its Parisian office where several dozen employees work. She would even have already warned the owners of the premises.
This was the objective of the executive: to return FIFA’s headquarters to Paris where it was created in 1904. Since June 2021, the international federation has had an office in the Hôtel de la Marine where several dozen employees work.
This office is a central place for exchanges with FIFA’s eleven regional development offices, spread around the world, as well as with the body’s headquarters in Zurich.
It houses the entire division of member associations responsible for redistributing World Cup revenues to the 211 member associations. Activity that FIFA describes as non-profit equal to that of an NGO.
But according to our information, FIFA is thinking about closing this office. She would even have already warned the owners of the premises that her office would be moved after September 2024, at the end of the rental lease. In Zurich or elsewhere. To justify this decision, FIFA highlights the absence of a specific legal status allowing it (like other international sports organizations) to recruit the best employees with tax advantages, to have facilities in work visa procedures and the possibility for these employees to create their own pension funds.
At the end of 2023, the government had tried to pass a law housing tax provisions in the 2024 budget intended to attract international sports federations recognized by the IOC to France, FIFA being the main target of the executive.
These measures, which had been the subject of an unfavourable advisory opinion by the Council of State in the autumn, provided for the exemption of these federations from corporate tax and several contributions (land contribution of companies, contribution on the value added of companies).
The amendment was also to exempt employees of federations domiciled in France from income tax for five years. Even if these provisions did not concern FIFA’s commercial activities, they had provoked the ire of parliamentarians who had filed three appeals before the Constitutional Council.
On December 28, the latter rejected government measures because they disregarded the “principle of equality” before the tax according to him. The last few weeks have been agitated in the ministries, especially because of the reshuffle and dense news elsewhere, and this file has not advanced too far enough to impatient FIFA. But according to our information, the government has scheduled technical meetings in the coming weeks to make a proposal to FIFA that could respond to its request while taking into account the conclusions of the Constitutional Council. The objective is to convince her to stay in Paris.
FIFA is therefore waiting before ratifying its decision but is preparing to turn its back on France and its capital.