FIFA President Gianni Infantino (www.FIFA.com) has stressed the importance of FIFA’s partnership with the World Trade Organization (WTO) in delivering on actions that provide real impact in improving lives and livelihoods in West Africa and committed to using products from Cotton-4 plus (C4+) in FIFA programmes.

Coinciding with the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup UAE 2024 Dubai™, Mr Infantino was in neighbouring Abu Dhabi to speak at a special event which was staged around the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference and chaired by WTO Director-General Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The event brought together ministers and senior officials from across the WTO’s 164 member states as well as key partners, aiming to generate progress on key international trade discussions that aim to foster development.

FIFA and the WTO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in September 2022 to explore how best to use football to promote economic inclusion in developing countries with a focus on the WTO’s cotton programme, as well as regular high-level exchange and discussions.

Cotton is a vital cash crop for the West African C4+ countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali – as well as in Côte d’Ivoire. The cotton produced in these countries is among the most sustainable in the world however, most is exported as a raw material rather than finished product. If that could be changed to mean the field-to-fabric cycle is completed in the C4+ nations, they would gain a greater share of the football apparel market revenues.

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