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Editorial February 2011
Soccerphile Editorial - February 2011
FIFA CAN CHANGE IF WE KEEP THE FAITH
"There has been a stink around FIFA for a very, very long time." - Sir Christopher Meyer, former UK ambassador to the USA, speaking on BBC's Question Time.
Soccer politics has rarely been a hotter topic.
When the FIFA Executive Committee retired to their inner sanctum in Zurich on the 2nd of December last year and emerged with World Cup Finals passes for Russia and Qatar, much of the rest of the world were aghast and questioned FIFA's right to run world football.
While Moscow and Doha celebrated their historic triumphs, the rejects, particularly England, ratcheted up the anger against the perceived injustice of it all. 'Disgrace, sham, fix, stitch-up' - it was not hard to predict the words emanating from the bowels of Fleet Street. For the next few weeks, journalists highlighted Russia's mafia-esque elite and the lack of rights accorded to minorities (and journalists) in Qatar, in order to tarnish FIFA by association. El Mundo in Spain named "oil and gas" the World Cup winners while the US media, less emotionally involved in soccer, blamed more abstract geo-political shifts.
Scrutiny has descended upon the 24 men who pull the strings of the global game, an almost as prestigious but even more select members' club than the G8 as their careers seem to last forever. Until the World Cup vote most fans could barely name any of soccer's innermost circle beyond the President Sepp Blatter and perhaps Michel Platini or Franz Beckenbauer.
But all that is changing as people are demanding more accountability. A world emboldened by new media has drilled holes through hitherto unbreachable walls of silence and is asking, in the words of Juvenal, 'Who is guarding the guards?' The idea of a breakaway organisation for disgruntled nations has been floated, while a club rebellion over the 2022 tournament remains a distinct possibility.
FIFA may not hold back the tide of change forever. Two Ex.Co. members were booted out before the World Cup decision when the Sunday Times revealed their votes were for sale, and the remainder's mass rejection of England, egged-on by Blatter as they went in to vote, only fuelled suspicions of a shady gang with something to hide. A free press, as many rightly noted, should be no reason to reject a nation.
Yet for all the goals scored by investigative journalism, a sense of powerlessness still pervades those of us on the ground who fund this global industry. Football plays such a big role in so many lives, but the faithful feel they have no say and that the oligarchs in power cannot be trusted to make the right decisions: Surely no ballot of football fans across the globe would have selected as World Cup host a tiny desert state with precious little history, footballing or otherwise, and 50C summers.
The seating arrangements at high table have changed slightly since December but will the tune FIFA dances to be any different? Maybe not as the man in Blatter's slipstream is a Qatari, buoyed by his land's capture of the 2022 finals.
Mohamed Bin-Hammam is ambitious enough, having risen through the FIFA ranks after managing volleyball and ping-pong associations in Qatar.
After Blatter backed Bahrain's Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa's attempt to unseat him in 2009, the Qatari has embarked upon a revenge mission, which took wing early last year when he demanded the President personally pay the Nigerian F.A. money he claimed they were owed.
Further anti-Blatter rhetoric has left his lips in 2011, with a challenge at this summer's FIFA Congress looking ever likelier. The Swiss boss has set himself on a war-footing in return, taking aim at his opponent over the uncertainty surrounding Qatar 2022 and even announcing the launch of a FIFA Ethics Committee, a title that had fans and journalists rolling in the aisles.
Blatter has deliberately sowed confusion in his enemy's ranks, calling for a January World Cup in full knowledge of the havoc that could cause to the big clubs and the International Olympic Committee, who have the Winter Olympics scheduled for then. In early February he u-turned and apparently came out in favour of a summer show, well aware the searing heat is as unpopular an issue for the national associations involved.
"Everything is settled now for summer," Blatter said, adding confusingly, "I am not in favour of one or the other. What I did say, winter is not only January or February."
The President has dipped further into The Art of War to tempt Bin-Hammam's allies with booty, suggesting India and Australia should host the big show soon and, via his proxy Michel Platini, that other Arab nations could co-host alongside Qatar in 2022! Is the FIFA President deliberately trying to derail his own big show? Quite possibly, as it could be the only way he stays in power.
The Swiss had a further boost when loyalist Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan unseated Bin Hammam pal Chung Mong Joon as a FIFA Vice-President at last month's Asian Football Congress in Doha. The Qatari fumed at alleged shady goings-on around the vote, but Round One went decisively to Blatter.
With Japan's Junji Ogura retiring, the Ex.Co. is now shorn of any East Asian representation, and contains ten Europeans, three South Americans, three from North & Central America, three from the Arab world, two sub-Saharan Africans and two from South-East Asia. The major economic block of China, Japan and South Korea now has no voice at FIFA's apex.
Can Blatter lose power in June? Bin-Hammam clearly has some work to do if the reign of King Sepp is to end this summer, but he has at least broken his silence on FIFA corruption. This provides a chink of light for FIFA's future, where transparency instead of omertà ought to hold sway.
FIFA's paranoia about external politics still remains an obstacle to a cleansing of the Augean Stables in Zurich. Whenever an elected government interferes in the running of a nation's football association it slaps an immediate ban on all their teams from participating.
Ensconced upon a Swiss hillside, FIFA has managed to avoid taxes and international scrutiny for years, in the process cultivating the image of a body above and beyond the law and which is quite comfortable having a ticket-tout and embezzler like CONCACAF's Jack Warner as a Vice-President. Can it reform itself, by itself? It seems unlikely. A push or two in the right direction seems necessary.
The time for change is ripe as the media spotlights are shining more brightly than ever. Governments should call Zurich's bluff and engage through dialogue with FIFA in an effort to get them to clean up their act. And if that does not work, legislate. It worked before when international pressure forced the notoriously bent IOC to change. What had previously been a bribable club now appears a paragon of virtue compared to its football cousin. The gross amount of lobbying and back-room deals struck for 2018/2022 would not have been permitted for Olympics bidding contests.
Fans should not lose heart. As Tunisia and Egypt are currently proving, revolutions can spring unexpectedly up from the soil. Mohammed Bin-Hammam may not be the messiah to lead the faithful to the promised land, but if he consigns Blatter to the annals it will be at least be an act of mercy, the deserved coup de grace on a sleazy era which started with Joao Havelange's calculated snatching of the crown from Stanley Rous in 1974.
The road ahead to a new, clean, accountable and universally trusted FIFA is not clear yet. But at least the conversation about getting there has become harder to ignore than ever before. Let us go forward together.
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