About FIFA
Football’s global governing body pairs more than a century of stewardship with a commitment to innovation
Founded in 1904, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) oversees and promotes football at every level, organizes competitions including the FIFA World Cup™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup™, and works with 211 Member Associations to develop the sport worldwide. At each FIFA World Cup™, football becomes a shared global language, bringing fans across countries and cultures together in celebration.
The FIFA World Cup 2026™ set new all-time records for both attendance and viewership, with nearly seven million fans in stadiums and a global audience estimated at over six billion.
“What Slack brings to the table is connection to data in the background, giving you rich information in real-time. Very difficult to achieve with other platforms in a fully integrated way.”
The challenge
FIFA needed reliable coordination across 104 matches, 16 host cities, three countries, and 26 venues
The FIFA World Cup 2026™ was bigger and more complex than anything the organization had ever attempted before, spanning 104 matches across 16 host cities in three countries. Supporting billions of fans required coordinating 65,000 volunteers, staff across 16 venues, and local organizing teams, making fast, reliable communication essential to tournament operations.
Volunteer scheduling and onboarding happened in volunteer management, but day-to-day coordination relied on chats, emails, spreadsheets, and other untracked messages. The same challenges extended to FIFA’s global Rewards & Recognition team, which coordinated recognition for tournament staff, volunteers, referees, players, and fans throughout the event.
Without a secure, centralized workspace, critical operational updates were difficult to track, increasing the risk of last-minute scrambles.
“Having a solution that lets us collaborate globally, in real-time, is a complete game-changer. Our volunteers can access Salesforce records, FIFA policies, and other documents in Slack.”
How FIFA works better with Slack
Slack connects coordinators, tournament logistics, and data in one workspace
FIFA deployed Slack for its Rewards & Recognition team ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, giving coordinators a single location to manage one of the tournament’s most meaningful workforce programs.
Throughout the tournament, coordinators used Slack to streamline prize distribution across three countries, ensuring the right reward reached the right stadium, the right match, and the right recipient — whether they were recognizing a fan, referee, player, volunteer, or FIFA employee.
When reward delivery plans changed, Slack helped coordinators quickly coordinate the right response. “Using Slack, we monitored inventory levels at each of our 16 venues,” said Nathalie Grace, Senior Manager of Workforce. “We easily confirmed how and when items were distributed to winners.”
Technology behind teamwork
Rewards & Recognition coordinators can use enterprise search to find FIFA records in Salesforce from Agentforce Sales and Agentforce Service for example, pulling up a stadium’s shift roster to check who is staffed that day. Slack connects to Salesforce through a native connector, so CRM records are searchable without middleware, custom APIs, or switching applications. The same prebuilt connectors bring FIFA’s cloud-based knowledge articles and operational documents into enterprise search.
When coordinators need more than a search result, Slackbot reasons across FIFA CRM records, documents, and Slack conversations to answer questions, help finalize distribution plans, and even draft new messages for human review.
As the match unfolds, Slack remains the team’s command center. If a coordinator notices a staffing mismatch or another operational issue, they can forward the relevant conversation to a dedicated manager channel with a single click and add any additional context. Managers receive an alert containing the full Slack conversation history, supporting documents, and Salesforce records needed to make decisions in real time. When a prize is delivered, a record update in Agentforce Service automatically triggers a confirmation in Slack.
When work passes between shifts and time zones, Slackbot reads conversation history, FIFA CRM records, and open threads to generate structured handoff summaries. Incoming teams can ask follow-up questions in natural language and begin the next match with the latest operational context already at hand.
“Our people don’t want to log into one tool, then another – we are focused on efficiency and seamless end-user experience. That’s where Slack is very strong. They don’t have to jump from one application to another because everything they need is integrated and accessible from a single interface.”
What’s next
FIFA will extend the usage of Salesforce products & model for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ in Brazil
For the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™, FIFA plans to expand Salesforce products beyond Rewards & Recognition, establishing it as the system of engagement for all workforce operations. “FIFA’s workforce is thousands of people,” Grace said. “We can’t have them communicating through emails. That’s where Salesforce products, in particular Slack, is going to be the best of the best.”
Imagine a volunteer arriving for their shift. Instead of checking multiple apps or waiting for an email, FIFA envisions schedules, stadium assignments, and operational updates all delivered through Slack. Managers will be able to send real-time updates to a single volunteer or an entire shift — for example, redirecting staff to a different entrance or reassigning volunteers when coverage needs change. To keep volunteers informed, FIFA plans to deploy headless AI agents within Slack that can answer volunteer questions and provide operational guidance before and during every shift.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ tournament is expected to involve 6,000 volunteers across host country Brazil, and like the 2026 event, FIFA will rely on Slack to ensure every shift, stadium assignment, and operational update contributes a world-class experience.
