As the FIFA World Cup 2026 kicks off today in Canada, Mexico and the United States, Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros reflects on one of football’s most valuable, and often most fragile, assets: trust.
In this week’s Front Line column in Record, Portugal’s leading sports newspaper, SIGA’s Global CEO draws on more than 30 years of experience in football and in the global fight for Sport Integrity to examine why trust remains the silent capital of the game.
At a time when billions of people around the world are united by football, the article underlines a central message: integrity is not only an ethical imperative. It is a condition for the credibility, sustainability and future value of sport.
Launched on 4 June 2026 in Record, Portugal’s leading sports newspaper, SIGA’s weekly opinion column provides a dedicated platform to address issues at the heart of SIGA’s global agenda, including Sport Integrity, good governance, transparency, accountability, financial integrity, sports betting integrity, sustainability, youth development and protection, and the future of sport.
Read the article in Portuguese here.
Trust: Football’s Silent Capital
By Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, Co-Founder, and Global CEO, SIGA
The FIFA World Cup begins today.
Over the coming weeks, billions of people will watch the same matches, debate the same moments, and share the same emotions. In a world increasingly fragmented by conflict, polarisation, algorithms, and a permanent battle for attention, this is a remarkable phenomenon.
Few institutions can still bring together people from different continents, cultures, generations, and perspectives around a truly shared experience. Football still can.
The World Cup has become one of the rare truly universal events of our time. Few phenomena can mobilise so many people, in so many countries, for so long, all at once.
But football’s scale cannot be explained solely by its popularity or by the billions it generates. Its true singularity lies elsewhere.
Over more than a century and a half, football has earned something that many public and private institutions are now struggling to preserve: trust.
Millions of people invest time, emotion and resources in football because they believe in a simple premise: what happens within the four lines deserves to be trusted.
They believe that the rules are known and applied. That the competition is legitimate. That merit continues to play a decisive role. That institutions exist to protect the game, not to take ownership of it.
It is this trust that transforms a sport into a global institution. It is what sustains audiences, attracts investment, mobilises sponsors and generates economic value. It is what enables football to cross borders in a way few other human activities can.
Trust is football’s silent capital. Invisible most of the time. But impossible to ignore when it is missing.
It is felt when doubts arise over the integrity of competitions. When transparency gives way to opacity. When oversight mechanisms fail. When private interests prevail over the collective interest.
At such moments, a reality that is too often overlooked becomes clear: integrity is not merely an ethical issue. It is a condition of sustainability.
Corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, match-fixing, conflicts of interest and poor governance are not merely reputational problems. They are systemic risks to football’s credibility and to the social and economic value that depends on it.
For too long, integrity has been viewed primarily as a response to crisis. Experience shows the opposite. Trust is not rebuilt at the point of crisis. It is built long before crisis strikes.
Around 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu rightly observed that battles are won before they are fought. The same is true in sport. Integrity is measured by the quality of the decisions, rules, control mechanisms and institutional culture that help prevent problems before they arise.
This is why integrity must be understood as infrastructure. As essential to the future of football as its athletes, competitions, fans and business models.
Trust cannot be decreed. It must be earned.
And, in sport, it is earned every day, through transparent decisions, responsible leadership and a genuine commitment to the highest standards of integrity.
This is precisely the conviction that underpins SIGA’s work.
If trust is sport’s most valuable asset, integrity cannot depend on good intentions alone. It must rest on clear principles, recognised standards, and credible mechanisms for implementation, verification and certification.
It was for this purpose that SIGA developed its Universal Standards on Sport Integrity and SIRVS, the SIGA Independent Rating and Verification System: to turn commitments into demonstrable results and strengthen the credibility of sports organisations.
Because, in a sector where trust is essential, integrity should not merely be proclaimed. It must be demonstrated, measured, and verified.
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ABOUT SIGA
SIGA is the world’s leading organisation for Sport Integrity. We are creating a whole new landscape for the sports industry by delivering independent global rating and certification for world Sport to ensure it is governed and operates under the highest integrity standards: The SIGA Universal Standards.
Funded by our Members, SIGA is a non for profit global independent organisation with one aim: To ensure the sport industry is governed under the highest integrity standards so that the values of sport are protected.
SIGA is the only organisation to bring together sport, governments, academia, international organisations, sponsors, business, rights holders, NGOs and professional services companies, from every region in the world, around a common cause of fostering greater integrity throughout sport.
SIGA is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, as a non for-profit association, and comprises of the following continental subsidiaries: SIGA AMERICA, SIGA EUROPE and SIGA LATIN AMERICA.
For more information on SIGA, including its vision, mission and reform agenda, please refer to the website: www.siga-sport.com and FAQs.
To contact SIGA, please email: comms@siga-sport.com.