Diversity and image rights top the agenda at FIFPro Congress

All 66 of the global body for football players’ member associations from around the world have converged in Cape Town, approximately 19 years since FIFPro last held its AGM in this city.

Gaoshubelwe says the matters of diversity will be focused on international football in its entirety.

"Look, we're attending an international conference, obviously there are quite a number of things that we are interested in, firstly, as South Africa and the broader Africa in particular," said Gaoshubelwe.

"As you'd know that one of the key issues for us is diversity and inclusion within the happenings at international level – we don't see a lot of Africans, whether at the level of FIFA or FIFPro, breaking into that particular space.

"But we want to talk about this because those things speak to the issue of transformation in terms of the agenda that we want to push – what is it that we're really talking about?"

Gaoshubelwe, who is also the president of the South African Football Players’ Union (SAFPU) revealed that matters of players' image rights will also form part of the discussions in this congress.

"We'll also focus on the issue, in particular, on the intellectual property of the players. Here at home, you'd know that when it comes to image rights, normally those are given to the clubs – they've got the sole rights," he elaborated.

"The question is, how do we then learn best practices because we're going to have a full workshop on the image rights, to say, 'This is how you do image rights, and this is how you deal with issues of data.'

"Because some players, like your Cristiano [Ronaldo], they control their data – who they're going to sell it, what's happening and so forth. So for us it's very interesting that we'll be dealing with some of those key issues that we really want to improve on as a continent."

Gender pay parity is also on the FIFPro agenda, after the international body led the call for the groundbreaking player bonuses at the recent 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which saw players duly receiving millions of Rands for their participation at the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.