Labor & Employment World Cup 2026: Atlanta, Georgia v. Spain on Non-Discrimination Protections

Kickoff: Getting to Know the Spanish National Team

Spanish football is often understood through one simple idea: the team comes first. The Spanish national team has built much of its identity around technical quality, patience on the ball and a way of playing that depends on coordination rather than isolated moments. When Spain plays well, the game can look calm from the outside, but that calmness usually comes from structure, timing and a shared understanding of where everyone needs to be.

Spain’s proudest World Cup moment is, of course, its 2010 victory in South Africa, when La Roja won the tournament for the first time. Looking ahead to 2026, the challenge will be to build on that legacy without simply trying to repeat it. For Spain, success has often come when talent is matched with balance, discipline and a clear collective idea. 

Home Field Advantage: Introducing Atlanta, Georgia

As one of the largest metropolitan economies in the United States, Atlanta operates as a hub where industries, talent, and global business intersect. It is home to a dense concentration of Fortune 500 companies and multinational operations, with core sectors including logistics, finance, professional services, technology and hospitality. That structure is reinforced by Atlanta’s role as a transportation crossroads, anchored by one of the world’s busiest airports and distribution networks that link the city to domestic and international markets. Atlanta is also a global leader in healthcare and research, housing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and major healthcare systems. Metro Atlanta is also home to several leading colleges and universities, such as Emory, Georgia Tech, Morehouse, Spelman and others across the area, which help build a pipeline of talent. 

That sense of interconnectedness extends beyond business and higher education into Atlanta’s civic and cultural identity. The city has long served as the headquarters for organizations with global reach, including Habitat for Humanity International, the American Cancer Society, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Carter Center. Atlanta’s legacy is shaped by figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Jimmy Carter—leaders whose work advanced equality, public health and humanitarian efforts worldwide. 

That same dynamic shows up in Atlanta’s sports and local culture, where success has often come from collective execution rather than individual moments. The city has repeatedly served as a stage for global events—from the 1996 Summer Olympics to the 2026 FIFA World Cup—demonstrating its experience with organizing complex, large-scale initiatives. Even Atlanta’s rise as a soccer city, reflected in record crowds for Atlanta United and its selection as the home of the U.S. Soccer Federation’s new headquarters and National Training Center, illustrates how engagement and success are driven by a combination of fan culture, investment and infrastructure. In that sense, Atlanta—like Spain’s national team at its best—illustrates how a shared approach can turn individual talent into sustained results.

The Rulebook: Anti-Discrimination Framework Through the Lens of Religious Discrimination Protections

Georgia

In 2025, Georgia enacted the Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which establishes that the state government may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a generally applicable rule. The exercise of religion may only be burdened if it is in furtherance of a compelling state interest and uses the least restrictive means. The “exercise of religion” means any exercise of religion, whether compelled by or central to, a system of religious belief. It includes the practice or observance of religion under the state and federal constitutions. 

A person alleging that their religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this law may assert the violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against the government. The prevailing party, other than the government, may be allowed to recover attorney fees. 

What made the law controversial — and particularly relevant for employers — was concern from critics that the RFRA could: (1) affect religious workplace accommodation disputes; and (2) potentially enable discrimination claims from all sides, including religious minorities or LGBTQ employees. Notably, Georgia lacks a comprehensive statewide civil-rights framework comparable to many EU jurisdictions. Employees seeking protection in Georgia generally rely on the federal anti-discrimination protections. 

As such, with the Georgia RFRA, the state’s current trajectory is to embrace stronger religious liberty protection, while simultaneously imposing relatively lighter anti-discrimination protections.

Spain

Spain approaches this issue from a different starting point. While Georgia’s RFRA debate is largely framed around religious liberty and protection from government interference, the Spanish model is built around equality, dignity, and the active prevention of discrimination in the workplace. Religious freedom is protected under the Spanish Constitution, but in employment law it sits within a wider anti-discrimination framework covering religion or belief, sex, racial or ethnic origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other personal or social circumstances.

The Spanish approach is not limited to telling employers not to discriminate. In many areas, the law also expects employers to take active steps to prevent inequality before it becomes a dispute. One of the clearest examples is the obligation for companies with 50 or more employees to have an equality plan. These plans must be based on a prior diagnosis of the company’s situation and must address issues such as recruitment, professional classification, promotion, training, pay, working conditions, work-life balance, underrepresentation of women and prevention of sexual harassment and harassment on grounds of sex.

Spain has also introduced specific obligations for companies with more than 50 employees to adopt planned measures to protect equality and non-discrimination of LGTBI¹ people at work, including a protocol to prevent and address harassment or violence. For employers, the practical message is straightforward: equality compliance in Spain is not just a policy in the handbook. Employers need to keep their equality plans and LGTBI measures up to date, train managers, document employment decisions properly and make sure complaints are handled through clear and reliable internal procedures. In Spain, preparation and proactivity is a key part of the compliance playbook.

On the Global Field: Closing Thoughts

The comparison between Georgia and Spain highlights two different approaches to structuring the workplace: one grounded in proactive equality obligations and detailed compliance expectations, and the other shaped by an emphasis on individual liberties and a lighter state-level regulatory framework. For employers operating across both, the practical takeaway is not about choosing one model over the other, but about calibration—ensuring that workplace policies, documentation and risk management strategies are tailored to local legal realities while remaining coherent across the organization.