A BROKEN PLATFORM, BROKEN RULES, AND NO ONE TO ANSWER FOR IT

FIFA holds a worldwide monopoly on football agent licensing. There is no alternative exam, no alternative provider, no other way to practise. If you want to be a licensed football agent anywhere in the world, you sit FIFA's exam on FIFA's platform under FIFA's rules, and if something goes wrong, FIFA reviews its own decision.

In April/May 2026, something went very wrong. Again.

Candidates across multiple countries experienced platform crashes, screen sharing failures, and a PDF viewer so broken it turned an open-book exam into a closed-book one. These are the same problems candidates reported during the 2025 exam. FIFA had a full year to fix them. They kept the same vendor, the same platform, and the same process. The result was the same too.

Rule 1(d) of FIFA's own Exam Rules states that their purpose is to ensure "the regularity and fairness of the Exam." By FIFA's own standard, what candidates experienced in April/May 2026 was not fair. This petition exists because candidates who did everything right, prepared for months, passed FIFA's own technical readiness check, lost their exam to a process that FIFA knew was broken and chose not to fix.

WHAT IT COSTS

Candidates spend months preparing for this exam. They study hundreds of pages of FIFA regulations and in many cases put their professional lives on hold to focus on passing. For career changers, this exam is the only entry point into the profession. For those already working in football, it is the difference between continuing their career and being forced out.

This exam is offered once a year. The next sitting is not until 2027. When the platform fails and a candidate does not pass, they do not just lose the exam. They lose an entire year. A year of waiting. A year of not being licensed. A year of income they cannot earn, because no one can practise as a football agent until they pass. They prepare again and sit down in front of the same platform hoping it works this time. And none of them failed because they did not know the material. They failed because the software did not work.

THE PLATFORM DOES NOT WORK

FIFA outsources exam delivery to Victvs (victvs.co.uk), a UK-based testing company. During the April/May 2026 sittings:

Screen sharing broke. Candidates could not start the exam or were interrupted mid-exam by the same screen sharing error. Some of us experienced this identical failure on both our original sitting and the resit weeks later, on the same device, with the same setup that passed FIFA's own readiness check both times. The defect is in the platform, not in our equipment.

The PDF was unusable. This is an open-book exam. The entire format is built around candidates being able to search a 1,000-page regulatory PDF during the 60-minute window. That is the deal: you study the structure, you learn where to find things, and on exam day you verify your answers against the source material. When the PDF viewer fails to render, loads page by page, or crashes entirely, that deal is broken. You paid for an open-book exam. You sat a closed-book one. And FIFA scored you as if everything worked.

FIFA's own readiness check means nothing. Before every sitting, FIFA requires candidates to complete a Pre-Exam Readiness Check to verify their device and connection. Candidates who passed this check still had platform failures during the actual exam. If the readiness check cannot predict whether the platform will work, what is it for?

Every minute spent dealing with a technical problem is a minute stolen from the exam. In 60 minutes with 20 scenario-based questions, losing even two or three minutes to platform failures can cost you the pass mark. Not because you did not know the material, but because FIFA's vendor could not keep the software running.

A platform failure during a single exam sitting is a technical problem. The same platform failures across two consecutive years of exams, with the same vendor, after candidates reported the issues the first time, is a decision. FIFA chose to keep using a platform they knew did not work. Candidates paid the price for that decision with their careers.

THE RULES PUNISH YOU FOR REPORTING PROBLEMS

FIFA's exam rules (January 2026 edition) contain four provisions that, read together, form a trap:

Rule 11(3): The invigilator "shall not answer any questions relating to the content of the exam or provide any support." When the platform breaks, no one will help you.

Rule 8(6): "No extra time shall be granted for any reason." If you lose five minutes to a screen sharing error, you do not get those minutes back.

Rule 11(4): Communicating with the invigilator during the exam uses your 60-minute clock. Every second you spend reporting a problem is a second you cannot spend answering questions.

Rule 12(4): Candidates must report issues during the exam to preserve their right to request a review afterward.

So: you must report the problem to protect your appeal rights, but reporting costs you time, no one can help you, and you will not get the time back. FIFA built a process that punishes you for using it.

Compare this to the bar exam, the CFA, or any serious professional licensing exam. When a candidate experiences a documented technical failure, the standard response is to stop the clock, resolve the issue, and either grant additional time or offer a free re-sit. FIFA does none of this.

THE APPEALS PROCESS IS A CLOSED LOOP

Under Rule 13(2)(c), requests for review are limited to "fundamental and obvious errors in the application of the FIFA regulations." Platform failures do not qualify. Procedural unfairness does not qualify. The fact that you sat a closed-book exam when you were promised an open-book one does not qualify.

And who conducts the review? FIFA. The same organisation that chose the platform and set the rules decides whether that platform and those rules were fair. No independent arbiter, no ombudsman, no external oversight at any stage.

Rule 15 gives the FIFA general secretariat discretion over "matters not provided for," but that discretion comes with no published criteria and no obligation to act.

WHAT MUST CHANGE

1. Audit or replace the exam platform. The Victvs platform must be independently audited for reliability before the next sitting. Publish the results. If it fails, change providers. Two years of the same failures from the same vendor is enough.

2. Free re-sit for affected candidates. Every candidate who experienced documented technical issues in the April/May 2026 sittings, including those whose original sitting was cancelled and whose resit had the same problems, should get a re-sit under fair conditions. They should not have to wait until 2027 for FIFA's platform failures. This is not unprecedented: FIFA offered re-sits to candidates affected by the 2025 platform failures. The mechanism exists. Use it.

3. Extend the exam to 90 minutes. Twenty scenario-based questions in 60 minutes gives candidates three minutes per question to read a complex scenario, search a 1,000-page PDF, find the relevant provision, and select the correct answer. That is not enough time to use the open-book format the way it is meant to be used. Extending to 90 minutes would let candidates actually do what the exam is designed for, and would absorb some of the time lost to platform failures.

4. Fix the rules.
- Grant time extensions when technical failures are documented. Other professional exams do this. FIFA can too.
- Create a post-exam reporting window so candidates can report issues without losing exam time.
- When the PDF fails, pause or reschedule the exam. An open-book exam with a broken book is not an open-book exam.

5. Independent appeals. Exam disputes should be heard by someone other than FIFA. Appoint an independent arbiter with the authority to order re-sits and recommend procedural changes.

WHY YOU SHOULD SIGN THIS

FIFA has every right to set a high standard for who becomes a licensed football agent. The exam should be difficult. Nobody is asking for it to be easier.

But with a worldwide monopoly on licensing comes an obligation that the process itself is fair. A platform that crashes is not fair. An open-book exam where the book does not work is not fair. Rules that punish candidates for reporting problems are not fair. An appeals process where the examiner reviews itself is not fair. And a governing body that watches the same failures happen two years in a row and changes nothing is not acting in good faith.

Sign this if you sat this exam and know what it feels like when the platform fails and the clock keeps running. Sign this if you are preparing for a future sitting and want to know that the process will actually work. Sign this if you are already licensed and believe the candidates coming after you deserve better than what you went through.

This is not a complaint about a hard exam. This is a demand that the process around it be honest.