Omar Ongaro
Governance Department of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
Omar Ongaro is the Head of the Players’ Status and Governance Department of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). A graduate of the University of Zurich, Switzerland (lic.iur. 1997), he joined FIFA in March 2000.
Within the Players’ Status Department he was first appointed responsible person for all players’ agents’ matters. He was actively involved in the proceedings leading to FIFA’s recognition of the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and was subsequently in charge within the Players’ Status Department of supervising and coordinating appeal procedures at the CAS involving FIFA.
Omar Ongaro was appointed Head of Players’ Status in February 2005. As of 1 October 2009 he is the Head of Players’ Status and Governance Department, which apart from being responsible for all players’ status matters also forms the liaison between the Players’ Status Department and the Transfer Matching System GmbH (TMS) as far as legal, regulations-related issues are concerned.
In his role, Omar Ongaro leads a team of international lawyers in charge of investigating employment- and transfer-related commercial and contractual disputes involving in particular, clubs and players, but also players’ agents and member associations of FIFA.