Football News » Editorial » Editorial April 2011
Editorial April 2011
Soccerphile Editorial - April 2011
FIFA Presidency Election
"The prevailing mood was fear," writes Soccer International journalist Grant Wahl of the mood surrounding nominations for the FIFA presidency.
Wahl, an American journalist whose best-selling book The Beckham Experiment brought him to the attention of the global football public, announced his bid to run for FIFA president just six weeks before the nominations closed.
Needing a formal nomination from just one national football association, Wahl was snubbed by each and every one of FIFA's 208 member groups, eventually calling time on his bid when it became clear he would not receive an endorsement.
Wahl's outlandish bid was seen as pie-in-the-sky stuff by the stuffy suits inside FIFA House, yet his reformist platform and simple promise to make the world game's governing body more transparent and accountable struck a chord with fans – even if it failed to persuade the movers and shakers within the sport itself.
There's no doubt followers of the game have lost faith with FIFA, but with Asian Football Confederation chief Mohammed Bin Hammam the only challenger to current incumbent Sepp Blatter for the role of FIFA president, long-suffering fans can look forward to more of the same.
Blatter, that peripatetic Swiss man with a penchant for gaffes, has long been viewed as out of touch. He once said female players should "wear tighter shorts and low cut shirts" to attract more male fans and has more recently been steadfast in his refusal to incorporate goal-line technology.
More sinister are the allegations of corruption so devastatingly espoused by United Kingdom-based journalist Andrew Jennings in his scathing tome, Foul. Jennings has been relentless in his pursuit of Blatter, alleging that he accepted bribes and used underhanded tactics to wield untrammelled force in the corridors of power.
Doha-born Bin Hammam doesn't carry quite the same reputation, although that's largely because the world press knows little about him. When foreign journalists belatedly began to question his role in Qatar's successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup, bin Hammam admitted he preferred dealing with his domestic media - presumably because they don't ask hard questions.
Time will tell whether Bin Hammam is the lesser of two evils, but the depressing realisation that football is likely to stay its current course is compounded by the fact another worthy candidate was overlooked.
Chile's Elias Figueroa is a three-time former South American Player of the Year and widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders of all time. Unfortunately Figueroa's attempt to defend FIFA's integrity as president came unstuck during the nomination process, when he too failed to garner a single vote in order to run for office. Not even the Chilean FA nominated Figueroa, proving that cronyism and back-handed favours are deeply entrenched within FIFA.
So it is that current president Blatter goes head to head with long-time AFC supremo Bin Hammam in a presidential race which captures the imagination of no one. At a time when FIFA is in desperate need of reform, it's more of the same from two men widely regarded as reactionary, secretive and beholden to the corporate powers who currently control the game.
Fans of Asian football can perhaps expect Bin Hammam to be more receptive to further growing the game throughout the burgeoning confederation, while Blatter may soften his stance on goal-line technology. But in the wake of widespread anger over the World Cup bidding process, it's clear neither man intends to herald a new era of transparency inside FIFA.
Instead it's a "mood of fear" prevailing in the build-up to the next FIFA presidential election, as cash-strapped national federations await their quadrennial hand-out and the seamy process of paying for votes begins anew. Sepp Blatter and Mohammed Bin Hammam are the two uninspiring candidates and they're running at the cost of real change in the corridors of power at FIFA.
| Editorials 2007 | Editorials 2008 | Editorials 2009 | Editorials 2010 | January 2011 Editorial | February 2011 Editorial | March 2011 Editorial | April 2011 Editorial
|
|
