May 28th, 2023:  FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem paid an amicable visit to the President of FIFA Gianni Infantino with the aim of discussing collaboration opportunities in the areas of sporting governance, stewarding and refereeing practices. Additionally, there was an in-depth, fruitful discussion on the Online Abuse campaign during which both parties highlighted the importance of joining forces with representative bodies from other sports along with other stakeholders for a greater positive impact.  

FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem said: “It was great to meet with President Infantino at the Monaco Grand Prix and tour our Race Control today. We discussed the growing collaboration between our organisations on sporting governance. We also discussed how we can share learnings on stewarding and refereeing from the FIA’s Remote Operations Centre in Geneva and using the football Video Assistant Referee system.”

The Online Abuse Campaign discussion was at the heart of the meeting. Ben Sulayem communicated to President Infantino the increasing prevalence of online harassment and abuse within the sport industry, stressing that taking action has become primordial at this stage.

Both presidents concurred that the FIA Online Abuse campaign is giving victims a voice, calling for coordinated action and concrete solutions.

“We also discussed ways of working together along with other sporting bodies on addressing the blight of online abuse and making change for good. The FIA’s United Against Abuse campaign seeks to bring the likes of FIFA, UEFA, IOC and representative bodies from other sports to join forces along with academic institutions and federal governments.”

Finally, the FIA is officially launching 6 scholarships dedicated to research into online hate globally, linked to Dublin City University and the FIA University. The latter is also planning to use artificial intelligence to reduce toxicity levels on FIA channels and will roll this out to their Member Clubs.