How does the ‘beautiful game’ continue to shine as the mantle for a global sport adored by billions when its governing body is in such disarray? FIFA is under a microscope with a scandal that throws reputation out the window followed by the kitchen sink. Mired with such unscrupulous imagery, Sepp Blatter, who has pioneered what is arguably the perennial sporting body of the world, is faced with being the president of the ugly circus. FIFA wasn’t a pristine and magnanimous organization before its immersion in scandal; its lack of oversight for sustainability within developing countries awarded the World Cup left much to be desired. Stadiums built in areas that were not ‘traditional hotbeds of football,’ left vacant in Brazil as parking lots or considered for re-development into prisons after the 2014 World Cup indicates careless and negligent planning by FIFA. Where was the mentorship? Where is the sustainability? Being a not-for-profit organization, FIFA earned $2.6 billion in profit from Brazil’s inflated $15 billion expenditure on hosting the World Cup. How that disbursement of public money will affect Brazilian society is yet to be seen. However the new scandals spewing from FIFA really bring a host of larger concerns to the fore.
Sepp Blatter has a reputation for being a savvy man. To last 18 years in a leading role of an international body beloved my many is no easy feat. Yet even suspended ‘Septic Bladder’ is feeling the stress of a Swiss investigation having suffered a nervous breakdown and been taken to hospital. Sepp has a lot to be nervous about with FIFA seemingly being an organization where executive committee members can be bought, and whose legitimacy is undoubtedly being questioned, with suspicions around which World Cup tournaments have been fairly allocated and which were purchased. What seems to have been a joust of power between UEFA President Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter (according to Blatter) has evolved to a ‘timeout’ for both, as well as FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke. The uncertainty has led officials like FA Chairman Greg Dykes to express dismay, stating “you need a completely reformed organization because you can’t carry on like this.”
The current proposals suggested by the FIFA Reforms Committee seem to fall short. The talons of any such meaningful reforms don’t seem to enable a hollowing out of the old guard. The reforms focus on limiting the FIFA president’s maximum tenure to 12 years and introducing an age limit of 74 years. This is a biased and halfhearted attempt at worst, and a detached perspective of FIFA’s internal problems with entrenching members at best. For a successful reformation of FIFA to occur, shouldn’t members across every committee within the organization be subject to the same rules? The original architect of the proposals, Domenica Scala, thought so. Of course that was before the reforms committee narrowed these proposals, highlighting a tightening of presidential powers while omitting Domenica’s broad and sweeping recommendations. Mr Scala had proposed much needed term limits of three, four-year terms also for members of the Executive Committee, the Secretary General and members of FIFA's other independent committees.
Would these reforms be significant in restructuring a now wayward FIFA? The rot may go deep into the very bowels of the FIFA structure! Give money and entrenchment enough time and they can slowly spoil any institution. The problem doesn’t lay simply with Sepp, Michel, executive committee members such as Jeffery Webb or other FIFA officials who have been charged with corruption, but rather in the management structure. Both the president and executive committee are elected by the Congress. All other members are elected by their Confederations. This leaves positions created by Confederations possibly susceptible to outside political agendas. Such a structure also creates a presidential position that has not chosen or elected the executive committee or its own government. This has benefits such as dissolution of influence but equally it makes for a fractured and bureaucratic system of governance full of division and internal squabbling. A decentralization of power away from the Eurocentric leadership of FIFA may benefit the management of the organization by diluting rigid processes, e.g. giving some vice-president positions to African member associations and giving women more access to the executive committee.
Indeed the scandal in FIFA is not just a systemic feature of football, but perhaps an endemic culture within sports governing bodies; FIFA executive committee member Vitaly Mutko – also Russian Sports Minister – is now acting like a contagion between sports organizations, followed by the World Anti-Doping Agency’s report slamming Russia over a host of illegalities. Despite this, Sepp is of the opinion “Vitaly is well received in our executive committee by all the people. He’s a nice guy, open-minded.”
The problem now also lies in geopolitics, with England, Belgium and Holland seeking legal advice on whether to pursue compensation after Sepp alluded to an agreement in 2010 with Russian outlet TASS that the World Cup would go to Russia in 2018 and the USA in 2022. Sharing the World Cup stage spotlight between the two biggest political powers is the unfortunate result of the politicization of sport and possibly propaganda. This bilateral agreement to share the World Cup between world powers was stymied though by Qatari influence and French ‘middle manning’. As Sepp admitted, “everything was good until the moment when Sarkozy came in a meeting with the present ruler of Qatar, (Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani). And at a lunch afterwards with Mr. Platini he said it would be good to go to Qatar. There was an election by secret ballot. Four votes from Europe went away from the USA … If the USA was given the World Cup, we would only speak about the wonderful World Cup 2018 in Russia and we would not speak about any problems at FIFA.”
Why would Qatar dare such an act of subterfuge and how is geopolitics involved?
- Coming in part two.
