FIFA in soccer stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association , which in English means “International Federation of Association Football.”

Quick Scoop

  • The name is in French because FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904, at a time when French was the primary diplomatic language in Europe.
  • It is the worldwide governing body of association football (what many countries call soccer), overseeing rules, international competitions, and global development of the sport.
  • “Association football” is the formal name of the sport, used to distinguish it from other codes like rugby football or American football.

A Bit More Context

  • FIFA brings together more than 200 national football associations (211 members), which is actually more than the number of UN member states.
  • It organizes the men’s and women’s FIFA World Cup, the most watched tournament in soccer, along with several other global competitions.

In short: when people ask “what does FIFA stand for in soccer?”, it’s the French acronym for the international federation that runs the world’s game.

TL;DR: FIFA = Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the global body that governs and organizes top-level soccer worldwide.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.