In the coming weeks, billions of us will do what football fans have always done.
We will gather in homes, cafés, public squares, and stadiums. We will celebrate victories, endure heartbreak, debate refereeing decisions, and dream that our nation might lift the greatest prize in sport. For a few extraordinary weeks, the FIFA World Cup reminds us that despite our differences, we are part of a global community united by a shared love of the beautiful game.
As sitting and former Heads of State and Government, High Level Government Officials, Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and leading figures in our field, we are writing to football fans everywhere with a simple message:
This World Cup gives us a chance to create a legacy that reaches far beyond football.
Today, Canada is showing leadership through its commitment as part of the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund campaign — a global effort to raise USD $100 million to expand access to quality education and sport-based learning opportunities for 100 thousand children around the world.
We believe this is an opportunity worthy of the world’s support.
For decades, countries have rightly celebrated the economic, cultural, and sporting legacies of the World Cup. Yet the greatest legacy of football’s biggest stage should not be measured only in infrastructure, tourism, or even trophies.
It should be measured in opportunities created for future generations. And opportunity must mean more than access to a classroom or a textbook. It must mean children arriving at school healthy, nourished, protected, and ready to learn. It means children who are not held back by hunger, preventable disease, or lack of basic support. That is why investments in school meals, children's health, and sport-based learning are so powerful. They help ensure that education is not only available, but truly reachable for every child.
Education is not simply a social good, it is one of the smartest investments the world can make. Yet today, 251 million children and young people remain out of school, while seven in ten children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple text by the age of ten. The cost of this learning crisis is measured not only in lost potential, but in slower economic growth, weaker societies, and deeper inequality. By contrast, every additional year of schooling increases a person’s future earnings by around 10 per cent, and every dollar invested in education can generate up to fifteen dollars in long-term economic returns.
The FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund offers a new model for what this World Cup legacy can be. It brings together governments, businesses, foundations, philanthropists, athletes, artists, and citizens behind a common goal: ensuring that more children have access to education, learning opportunities, and the life-changing benefits that sport can provide.
The first round of the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund demonstrates the transformative potential of investing directly in community-led organizations. Twenty-seven grassroots organizations across 10 countries, spanning Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, were selected to receive grants of US$50,000 to US$250,000. Together, these organizations are already reaching tens of thousands of children and young people, many in communities where fewer than 15 per cent of students complete secondary school and poverty rates exceed 60 per cent. Their work spans early childhood education, literacy, digital learning, girls’ education, disability inclusion, autism support, teacher training, after-school learning, academic tutoring, STEM education, violence prevention, mental health, and pathways to employment, all using the unifying power of football and sport to improve learning outcomes, build life skills, and create safer, more inclusive opportunities for children who need them most.
From rural preschools in South Africa to autism inclusion in Rwanda, digital education in Colombia, refugee and Indigenous youth programmes in Canada, and football-based learning initiatives in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Brazil and Japan, the Fund is backing locally led solutions tailored to the realities of each community.
The campaign transforms the world’s most popular sporting event into a platform for lasting social impact. It recognizes that football is not only entertainment. Football is a force capable of inspiring action, mobilizing resources, and creating opportunity far beyond the pitch.
Each World Cup creates memories that endure for generations.
But imagine if this era of football was remembered for something even greater: the moment when the global football community came together to invest in children.
That vision is already taking shape.
On July 16, Canada will join Global Citizen for No Child on the Sidelines, a special streaming event to celebrate the impact achieved through the campaign so far and accelerate progress toward its USD $100 million goal.
Canada’s leadership deserves recognition not only because it has contributed, but because it is also inviting the rest of the world to join.
Now we hope others will answer that call.
We hope governments will make new commitments.
We hope businesses and foundations will contribute.
We hope philanthropists will step forward.
And we hope football fans everywhere will encourage their leaders to help build this legacy.
No child should be left on the sidelines.
Signed,
José Ramos-Horta, President of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste and 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Laurate
Heinz Fischer, former President of Austria
Tarja Halonen, former President of Finland
Stefan Löfven, former Prime Minister of Sweden
Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand
Leo Varadkar, former Taoiseach of Ireland
Erna Solberg, former Prime Minister of Norway
Sigrid Kaag, former First Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands
Irina Bovoka, former Director General of UNESCO
Susana Malcorra, former Foreign Minister of Argentina
Amina Mohamed, former Foreign Minister of Kenya
María Eugenia Brizuela de Avila, former Foreign Minister of El Salvador
Cristina Gallach, former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Spain
Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laurate
Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
María Elena Agüero, Secretary General of the Club de Madrid
Francine Katsoudas, EVP and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer, Cisco
Monika Froehler, CEO at Ban ki-Moon Foundation
Jennifer Jones, Chair of the Rotary Foundation
Anita Bhatia, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director at UN Women
Melanne Verveer, former US Ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues
René Simões, former Brazil Women’s National Team and Jamaica Men’s National Team Manager