FIFA Rebuilds Legal Team in US Ahead of 2026 World Cup

FIFA, the global governing body for soccer, the world’s most popular sport, has brought on a head of corporate legal to join at least eight new lawyers the organization has hired amid an exodus of in-house legal talent.

Edna Falla-Quintanilla, most recently a managing director and regional counsel at FedEx Corp., joined FIFA this month to lead its corporate legal team, she said in a LinkedIn post this week. “I cannot think of a more exciting place to continue my career,” Falla-Quintanilla said.

As sports-related businesses and deals become more complex, in-house lawyers are increasingly in demand, said Jaimie Wolf, a veteran sports industry lawyer and legal recruiter now serving as general counsel for Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union. “Legal leaders and teams are playing a more prominent role in contributing to strategic leadership and growth, as opposed to merely being an ad hoc transactional counsel,” said Wolf, citing a desire by sports sector clients for greater legal headcount, support personnel, and systems.

Falla-Quintanilla, who is based in Miami, during her 14 years at FedEx co-led the logistics giant’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts for its operations in Central America and the Caribbean. She also had oversight for legal matters in 48 countries and territories—except for the soccer hotbeds of Brazil and Mexico—across Latin America. FIFA’s next World Cup, in 2026, will feature an expanded slate of 48 national soccer teams. Falla-Quintanilla did not return a request for comment about her new position.

A source familiar with Falla-Quintanilla’s move and that of more than a half-dozen other recent legal recruits said they’re related to FIFA’s disclosure last September that its in-house legal, compliance, and audit teams would relocate from its Swiss headquarters to Coral Gables, Florida, a Miami suburb. FIFA’s website states that its legal and compliance division employs roughly 150 individuals from 30 countries.

SportsBusiness reported in March that FIFA in-house lawyers had their Swiss employment contracts terminated and replaced by US contracts. Those that decided against relocation either resigned or were offered severance. The Guardian reported in June that the transition has been less than smooth with nearly two-thirds of FIFA legal and compliance staffers deciding against moving to the US.

The legal vacuum has created a need for new in-house lawyers, many of whom in the US are often unfamiliar with the structures unique to global soccer, according to another recent report by InsideWorldFootball.

Coming to America

FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) declined to discuss its in-house legal team, which saw its former head of commercial legal David Trasler leave in February to become global general counsel for TGI Sport Ltd., a private equity-backed sports marketing and talent agency in the UK.

Three months later FIFA’s general assembly amended its rules to give the organization future flexibility for potentially leaving its longtime base in Zurich. FIFA has said it has no plans to move the rest of its business operations from Switzerland, but its legal group will be permanently based in Miami.

The lucrative US market—now home to soccer icon Lionel Messi—is important to FIFA, in part due to increased investment in MLS and women’s soccer. The US, along with Canada and Mexico, will also host the 2026 World Cup.

Falla-Quintanilla joins FIFA as the body’s South American arm holds in the US its quadrennial Copa América tournament of national men’s soccer teams. The final featuring Messi is scheduled for July 14 in Miami, one of 16 host cities in 2026.

FIFA’s timeline for completing its legal division’s transition to Miami is set for late August, roughly a year after the organization hired Curtis Franks Jr.—a former associate general counsel for the National Collegiate Athletic Association—to be general counsel for the 2026 World Cup.

FIFA’s online jobs portal shows that it currently has a dozen legal and compliance openings, all of which are in Miami. The city’s location makes it an ideal outpost as a multilingual business hub for FIFA, which within the last decade has sought to strengthen its legal and compliance protocols by overhauling personnel—such as hiring its first-ever compliance chief—after a corruption scandal that affected some of its partners .

Those legal woes saw FIFA in 2018 bring on two new top lawyers in Alasdair Bell and Emilio Garcia Silvero from European soccer’s governing body. FIFA confirmed in April that Bell, a Scottish lawyer serving as its deputy secretary general, would soon depart but retain an advisory role, according to SportsBusiness.

FIFA’s since added lawyers who have worked at NBCUniversal Media LLC, Netflix Inc., BuzzFeed Inc., and the law firm Jones Walker, as well as at least one former Florida state prosecutor. Emily Jackson, head of legal for FIFA’s 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, has also joined the team in Miami.

FIFA is led by Swiss-Italian lawyer Gianni Infantino, who was elected president in 2016 and ran unopposed when he won another four-year term in 2023. FIFA’s most recent financial statement released in March shows that the organization increased Infantino’s annual pay package to nearly $4.7 million.