Adds Wyland attorney comment in paragraph 4

By Blake Brittain

June 2 (Reuters) - Artist Robert Wyland, better known as Wyland, has sued international soccer's governing body FIFA for painting over one of his murals in Dallas in preparation for the upcoming World Cup.

Wyland said in a lawsuit filed on Monday that FIFA's covering of his mural "Ocean Life" violated the Visual Artists Rights Act, a U.S. law that protects artists from having their works defaced, and requested at least $25 million in damages.

Spokespeople for FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint on Tuesday.

"This case is about integrity of the artwork and of the law," Wyland's attorney, Andrea Perez of Carrington Coleman Sloman & Blumenthal, said in a statement. "VARA exists so that culturally significant pieces are treated with dignity and care.”

Wyland painted his mural — also known as the "Whaling Wall" — in 1999, depicting whales, dolphins and other sea life on the side of a downtown Dallas building.

Dallas is one of 16 host cities for the FIFA World Cup beginning later this month. The lawsuit said that Dallas' World Cup organizing committee painted over the mural in May without contacting Wyland.

"In their zeal to capitalize on the international attention on Dallas during the FIFA World Cup, Defendants hastily and irrevocably destroyed a civic landmark," the lawsuit said. "Though FIFA claims they were working to develop art for the host city, in truth, they defaced an historic fixture of the host city."

A spokesperson for the building's owner, Slate Asset Management, said the committee had told it that a local artist would create a new installation on the wall and that Wyland had been made aware of the new work. Slate is also a defendant in the case.

Spokespeople for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint on Tuesday.

The case is Wyland v. Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, No. 3:26-cv-01794.

For Wyland: Monica Latin and Andrea Perez of Carrington Coleman Sloman & Blumenthal LLP

For FIFA: attorney information not yet available