“A very strange mix”: Board of Peace members expose governance failures in international sport

In January 2026, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, global political figures gathered on stage to sign an agreement joining the ‘Board of Peace’, a US-led initiative with the stated purpose of promoting peacekeeping around the world, with an initial focus on Gaza.

Standing beside Donald Trump, patron of the initiative, were heads of state and senior diplomats. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was represented by its special envoy to the US. Azerbaijan sent its president. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister signed on, as did the president of Uzbekistan and the prime minister of Pakistan, among others.

At first glance, the setting appeared strictly political. But viewed through the lens of sports governance, the same scene looks radically different:

At the World Economic Forum, President of the USA Donald Trump, who also chairs the White House Task Force for the 2028 Olympics, signed a global peace agreement with leading political and diplomatic actors who simultaneously occupy powerful positions within international sport: the chairman of Manchester City Football Club and City Football Group and presidents of national Olympic Committees. All while FIFA president Gianni Infantino watched from the front row.

Presented this way, the ceremony appears extraordinary. Yet the structure of international sports governance not only permits such entanglement but also creates the conditions for it to flourish.

The Davos ceremony was only a snapshot, and the fuller picture emerges from the Board of Peace’s own official membership list posted on its website on 23 February.

Members of the Board of Peace limit Olympic Neutrality

Saudi Arabia sent foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud to Davos to sign the agreement, yet the Board’s official member for Saudi Arabia is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom and key figure in its expansive sports strategy, including the successful bid for the 2034 FIFA World Cup.

Qatar followed a similar pattern. Its prime minister signed in Davos. But the Board member is Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, under whose leadership the country hosted the scrutinised 2022 FIFA World Cup and built one of the most state-directed sports portfolios in the world.

Al Thani is also a sitting member of the IOC and the de facto owner of BeIN Sports, the television network that recently secured exclusive broadcast rights for the LA28 Olympic Games in the Middle East and North Africa.

The most direct governance failure involves heads of state who simultaneously chair their countries' Olympic committees, creating an impossible contradiction between political leadership and the Olympic Charter's requirement of political neutrality.

The following politicians have all agreed for their respective countries to join the Board of Peace, illustrating this contradiction.

Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, also serves as president of the Azerbaijan National Olympic Committee. His government has been widely accused by human rights organisations of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.

His dual role has not prevented Azerbaijan from hosting the European Games, UEFA Euro matches, and an annual Formula One Grand Prix. Furthermore, the country's aggressive sports sponsorship campaigns, including state-owned oil and gas company SOCAR and the "Land of Fire" tourism initiative, have been linked directly to war propaganda efforts and even the killing of a Maltese journalist.

Aliyev is the most obvious embodiment of the structural problem posed by these dual roles. As Azerbaijan's head of state, his signature represents foreign policy, but as president of the National Olympic Committee, he is formally bound by political neutrality.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, president of Uzbekistan, chairs his country's National Olympic Committee while human rights organisations document systematic torture and severe restrictions on political freedoms in his country.

Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, is another example. He holds the title of Patron of the Pakistan Sports Board, which sits structurally above the country's Olympic Committee.

These are not honorary positions. Presidents of National Olympic Committees exercise formal authority over public funding and athlete support.

Sports governance expert Arnout Geeraert, who is an assistant professor at Utrecht University, argues that this contradiction persists because enforcement of the Olympic Charter is shaped less by legal principle than by power relations.

“The IOC’s ability to enforce the Olympic Charter is highly contingent on its relative bargaining power vis-à-vis individual states or NOCs. As a result, enforcement is selective and asymmetric. Weaker or less strategically important states are more likely to face sanctions, while powerful states can often disregard formal rules with limited consequences.”

According to Geeraert, defenders of the current system might argue that engaging political leaders is necessary for securing government support for sport. That is valid to some extent, but the argument conflates government support with government control, which violates foundational principles.

There are few examples of the IOC suspending countries for government interference. Russia, facing consequences for its state-sponsored doping programme, is the most apparent. But when the government does not interfere with the National Olympic Committee because the government is the National Olympic Committee, the IOC’s governance framework offers no effective response.

In response to questions from Play the Game, the IOC states that while the Olympic Charter requires political neutrality from Olympic organisations, “in some countries heads of state or government or political leaders have been elected by the NOC General Assemblies as the NOC leaders. This is not, in itself, incompatible with the Olympic Charter.”

The IOC's position is that “what matters is that the NOC, as an institution, operates autonomously, takes its sporting decisions independently and fulfils its obligations under the Olympic Charter.” The organisation added that “political actions undertaken by individuals in their governmental capacity fall outside the IOC's remit.”

The Olympic Charter states that the Olympic movement shall be politically neutral. FIFA's statutes similarly prohibit conflicts of interest and government interference in football. These principles are supposedly foundational to how international sport operates.

A closer look at the sitting members of the Board of Peace suggests that these principles and political neutrality exist primarily on paper. It reveals governance structures where the same individuals move seamlessly between signing geopolitical agreements and shaping decisions about Olympic funding, World Cup hosting, and which athletes will represent a country, with no mechanism to prevent or question such conflicts.

According to Arnout Geeraert this contradiction is not accidental but rooted in how the sports movement understands itself.

“It is a reflection of the sports movement’s self-image of sport as a realm above politics, governed by value-driven associations. This is, in fact, a myth. Political neutrality functions less as an enforceable rule than as a legitimising narrative. By framing sport as a realm above politics, governing bodies can claim moral authority, deflect public oversight, and selectively enforce their own rules,” he explains.

A 2017 survey from Play the Game showed that at least one in seven NOCs had leaders with formal ties to their national governments.

Football politicians in the family

In world football, the governance system seems to permit the same kind of entanglement between state power and sports administration that creates conflicts spanning multiple jurisdictions.

Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE president and member of the board is the brother of Sheikh Mansour, who is the majority owner of English Premier League club Manchester City and City Football Group, a holding company that administers 11 professional football clubs globally.

The person who initially signed the agreement on stage in Davos was special envoy to the US, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who is the chairman of City Football Group.

Like several other founding members of the board, the United Arab Emirates has faced sustained criticism from international human rights organisations. Criticism that sits uneasily alongside its expanding role in global sport governance.

The House of Khalifa, the royal family of Bahrain, is another example, that demonstrates how governance failures extend across family networks. Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Bahrain's minister in the prime minister's Court, signed the Board of Peace agreement. Whilst he may not be formally connected to sports politics, he belongs to the same ruling family as Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, who serves as FIFA vice president and president of the Asian Football Confederation.

Sheikh Salman carries serious human rights allegations related to the 2011 Bahraini uprising during the Arab Spring. Some allegations explicitly concern the treatment of the athletes themselves. The Bahraini member of the Board of Peace is King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the cousin of the FIFA vice president.

In an interview with Play the Game, Swiss governance expert Mark Pieth reinforces this argument:

“FIFA, like other sports organisations, in principle, should be non-political. What we're seeing, though, is actually the contrary. States are using World Cups to bolster their reputation. And in particular, there is an interesting development, where democratic states are less inclined to take on such huge events.”

“There are exceptions if you look at the Olympics in the UK or in France, but otherwise it's very frequently non-democratic states that are happy to host such events simply because they will be easily able to find enough money to do so. You have Russia, Qatar and now Saudi Arabia coming up,” Pieth says.

Partnerships with Infantino

A third model of governance failure, exposed by the Board of Peace, involves the normalisation of direct partnerships between sports organisations and political leaders, often framed as development initiatives but in reality, functioning as political alignments.

Nikol Pashinyan, the prime minister of Armenia, met with Infantino in 2022 to discuss a FIFA-backed construction of the country’s new national stadium.

Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto, has held multiple meetings with Infantino about football infrastructure after FIFA opened a regional office in Jakarta in 2023.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, formalized a direct state partnership with FIFA in October 2025.

In Kosovo, President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu even went so far as to award Infantino the Presidential Medal of Merit in October 2025, calling him "a true friend of football, a true friend of Kosovo." Three months later, she signed Trump's Board of Peace agreement.

The governance model has normalised direct partnerships between sports organisations and political leaders. Stadium projects, regional offices, and development partnerships function as tools of both sporting expansion and political influence, again with little to no mechanism to separate these purposes.

The gestures do not only flow one way. When the founding member nations of the Board of Peace met in Washington D.C. on 19 February, Gianni Infantino announced a “strategic partnership” between FIFA and the Board of Peace with FIFA investing $75 million that will go toward building “dozens of soccer fields, academies and stadiums in Gaza.”

On this occasion, the FIFA president was caught wearing a red “USA” hat with the numbers “45-47” written on it. An obvious nod to Donald Trump, who is the 45th and 47th president of the United States.

To further complicate the matter, Infantino has also been a sitting member of the IOC since 2020. The photos of him wearing a hat with clear connection to Trump forced IOC president Kirsty Coventry to answer questions about Infantino’s conduct to which she said that the IOC would investigate a potential breach of neutrality.

Only a few days later, the case was put to bed, as the IOC cleared the FIFA president saying, that his actions did not violate political neutrality. Infantino therefore faces no sanctions.

An outstretched hand to Russia

The Board of Peace also seems to hope to strengthen bonds with Russia. Though the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine is still ongoing, the Board of Peace extended an official invitation to Vladimir Putin to join.

This comes despite Russia's suspension from international football and ongoing Olympic sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. Decisions that have been largely supported by many of the member states of the Board of Peace. Putin has long embodied the integration of sport and politics that the Olympic Charter theoretically prohibits.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino acted quickly in the aftermath of the World Economic Forum and the Board of Peace's agreements.

After attending the ceremony, the FIFA president took to Instagram to show his support for the initiative.

According to Mark Pieth, this is symptomatic of Gianni Infantino.

“Now, what we're seeing with Infantino is simply going over the top. It's sycophantic to see how he is acting with Trump. I tend to say, if he were a comedian, that is exactly how you would react and what you would do. For example, you would know your friend needs a peace prize, and when he is not getting it, then you say, ‘well, I will give it to you.’”

Only two weeks after the ceremony in Davos, on 2 February 2026, Infantino spoke publicly about welcoming Russia back into international football in an interview with Sky News.

Mark Pieth, who chaired the Independent Governance Committee overseeing FIFA's governance reform process from 2011 to 2013, is not surprised by Infantino's actions but is rather uncomfortable seeing autocracies mingle with FIFA.

“The tendency that sports organisations cosy up to autocratic states is nothing new at all. You can go back to the Olympics with Hitler, where you had that kind of development, and you had it already in FIFA prior to Infantino.”

This again highlights how peace rhetoric, sports governance, and geopolitical positioning are increasingly intertwined rather than separated.

A few days after the ceremony in Davos, Belarus decided to join the Board of Peace. The country’s president Alexander Lukashenko’s son, Viktor Lukashenko, is the head of its National Olympic Committee.

Why it matters

The concentration of these dual roles among Board of Peace members raises fundamental questions about how political alignments might influence sporting decisions.

Both Pieth and Geeraert agree that international sports organisations are capable of reforming themselves to a certain point. But only if they are willing to.

Mark Pieth makes the claim that this is not only problematic in the sense of sporting autonomy, but also from a democracy perspective:

“If the world of sports and the world of politics were separated, you would have people deciding on their own, but here we have a very strange mix. And it is especially problematic as you have non-democratically elected politicians, you have autocrats, or people subverting democracy. If there is a democracy at all,” he says.

In the example of FIFA, the internal checks and balances look pretty good on paper. But its leadership can find ways to bypass them when powerful interests are at stake. And national federations, the on-paper owners of FIFA, are not fulfilling their institutional watchdog role.

This leads to direct effects on sports, Arnout Geeraert says, and uses the awarding of the FIFA World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia as a recent example:

“The decision reflects broader geopolitical alignments within FIFA, where Asian, African, and Middle Eastern associations are often aligned with Saudi Arabia’s political and economic influence. Crucially, FIFA went out of its way to bend, or at the very least creatively reinterpret, its own bidding rules to facilitate Saudi Arabia’s selection. In the process, FIFA’s human rights rules and due diligence procedures for host selection were effectively rendered impotent.”

Geeraert further explains how institutional reform has become a Gordian knot, and his analysis reveals why this governance failure will persist:

“Fundamental governance reform in global sport governance would require institutional structures that guarantee genuinely independent accountability and oversight. While sport governing bodies have increasingly incorporated formal checks and balances into their internal governance frameworks, these mechanisms often remain fragile.”

“Effective reform requires external intervention. Yet such intervention is systematically obstructed by the principled protection of self-regulation that sport governing bodies have secured through the doctrine of sporting autonomy,” he argues, and emphasises that sport and politics being completely separated is both simplistic and utopian.