Cleaning the Stables

When Poland takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union in June, it faces a long list of task. Aside from the financial crisis affecting various countries, the EU is currently trying to form a coherent response to the events to its south, as Arab nations attempt, with varying results and death tolls, to overthrow their despots. So it would perhaps not seem a good time to take on one of the most powerful non-governmental organisations in the world. Yet Poland should make reform of FIFA a priority. While FIFA vigourously rejects any attempts by governments to interfere, it has demonstrated no willingness to purge the corrupt elements within its structure. As recent events have shown, the organisation still tends to circle wagons. At this juncture, the European Union, because it remains both football’s biggest market, as well as FIFA’s primary source of revenue, is the only body which might have a chance of imposing order on FIFA, and its autocratic president, Sepp Blatter.

Presidents of FIFA tend to remain in the job for a long time. Since the organisation’s inception in 1904, only eight men have held the office. Blatter’s predecessor, Joao Havelange, held the position for 24 years, so Blatter’s dozen-year reign is not unusual. In many respects he has been good for football. Under his tutelage, the sport has truly gone global. Before he took over in 1998, the World Cup had never been held outside Europe or the Americas. Since then, it has gone to Asia and Africa. The amount of money in the game has increased exponentially. More than any of his forebears, Blatter has come close to achieving the Holy Grail and establishing football in the United States.

However, Blatter’s reign has been anything but quiet. Under his stewardship FIFA, always a murky organisation, has retreated into outright secrecy. There is no disclosure of salaries of senior staff.  Votes are held behind closed doors, and results are often predetermined by backroom deals cut by middlemen. Given that FIFA is the sole regulator of an industry worth tens of billions of euro a year, it would be expected that there would be some sort of mechanism to ensure accountability. Yet Blatter has fiercely resisted any interference by outside parties. Both Manchester United and Juventus, two of the biggest clubs in the world, were threatened with suspension or even expulsion from FIFA for considering taking legal challenges to decisions made against them, in the former case over Rio Ferdinand’s draconian punishment for missing a drugs test, and in the latter over being relegated for their involvement in the 2006 Italian match-fixing scandal.

Ireland’s request to be included as the 33^rd team in the 2010 World cup following an unseemly exit at the hands of Thierry Henry was indeed laughable, laughing it off was perhaps not very tactful. Blasé comments about female footballers, and gay fans, have not exactly enhanced Blatter’s reputation.
The gaffe-prone president has also been deaf to any public pressure, and has had a Luddite attitude to technology in the game, insisting that mistakes are a part of football. While, from a sporting point of view, it may be argued that bringing in video technology would result in undue holdups to the game, the sheer financial impact of a refereeing mistake at the top level (Witness England’s disallowed goal against Germany in 2010), coupled with the simplicity of goal-line technology make this particular change difficult to oppose on pragmatic grounds. In fact, under Blatter, the game has experienced a regression, as FIFA has stopped considering appeals against red cards based on exculpatory video evidence. While

More damagingly, under Blatter FIFA, which was never a paragon of fiscal probity, has become increasingly corrupt. His original election was dogged by subsequent allegations that eighteen African federations received money to back him, though Blatter himself was not implicated. A subsequent investigation into corruption and financial mismanagement was halted after members broke FIFA’s confidentiality rules. However, it has been the recent allegations surrounding the decisions to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively that has attracted the greatest attention, particularly in the light of Lord Triesman’s accusations in the past week.

Given the sheer volume of money and publicity accruing from hosting a World Cup, it is unsurprising that countries go to extreme efforts to gain their prize. A study at ABN Amro, a Dutch bank, suggested that hosting or winning the tournament could add almost a percentage point to GDP growth in a given year, as well as being a chance for a country to showcase itself to masses of foreign tourists. A massive lobbying effort goes into a country’s World Cup bid. However, given that the decision on hosting the World Cup is ultimately made by twenty-four men behind closed doors, the scope for direct approaches, backroom deals, and outright bribery is enormous.

Controversies have surrounded most of the recent World Cup decisions. For the 2002 tournament, South Korea is alleged to have disbursed significant sums of money to get the tournament, before hedging its bets and forming a joint bid with Japan. For 2006 Charlie Dempsey, New Zealand’s representative, ignored instructions from the Oceania Football Confederation to vote for South Africa and abstained, resulting in Germany winning by a single vote. Dempsey later claimed that an attempt had been made to bribe him. For 2010 Morocco, bidding for the fourth time in sixteen years, tried to suborn a number of FIFA’s Executive.

However, it is the most recent round of bidding that has attracted the most attention. Two factors have caused this. The first was the fact that England’s bid for the 2018 tournament, while technically the strongest, won a desultory two votes. During and after the bidding process, the English media and members of the FA claimed that certain members of FIFA’s executive had requested money or other favours in exchange for their vote. The second was the shock host of the 2022 tournament, the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar.

There is a strong case to be made that, whatever underhand deals may have been done, Russia was at least deserving of the 2018 World Cup on merit. The country has been a stalwart of European football for years, and while it has never hosted the tournament, it would certainly have the resources to put on a good show. Qatar, on the other hand, has massive problems with their bid. Independent assessments of Qatar’s bid constantly stressed the dangers to players’ health posed by the temperature, as well as the lack of existing infrastructure. Other issues existed with regards to alcohol consumption and the effect of hundreds of thousands of football fans arriving in a conservative Muslim country that Lonely Planet once described as “the most boring place on earth”.

Nonetheless, by the time the decision had come up for a vote, Qatar, which had largely been dismissed as a potential host, was odds-on to be the next host in British bookmakers Ladbrokes, following a number of large bets by well-connected individuals. Clearly, someone knew what was going to happen.

When Qatar was announced as the winner, it appears that Blatter was genuinely caught off-guard. While he rushed to defend the decision, he probably had no financial stake. More likely, it was another case of defending FIFA’s independence. The decision had been made, and no amount of external pressure would reverse it. It is telling, however, that both Blatter and Michel Platini, the head of Uefa, engaged in some backpedalling to deal with some of the issues raised with Qatar’s bid. Blatter suggested sidestepping the climate issue by playing the tournament in January, while Platini proposed playing some matches in other Gulf countries. Both ideas were rebuffed. Also, this year Qatar’s representative, Mohammed bin Hammam, announced his intention to contest the presidency of FIFA with Blatter, suggesting an acrimonious relationship between the two men.

Some of Qatar’s lobbying mechanisms, while dubious, are perfectly legal. Qatar’s Dream Academies, aimed at procuring the best in future talent from around the world, have been set up in several countries with representatives on the FIFA Executive. Similarly, the massive sponsorship deal signed by a Qatari quango with Barcelona, which effectively saved the club from bankruptcy, may not have been a direct influence on any vote by Spain, but would certainly have done no harm. Other allegations are of direct bribery, to the tune of $1.5 million in the case of two members of the Executive.

Blatter is not responsible for creating the patronage system that infects international football. He is, however a product of it, and a consummate insider. Unfortunately, his rival for the top job in FIFA, bin Hammam, is worse. It would be impossible for him to have been unaware that his country was engaged in nefarious practices. In the forthcoming election, Blatter is clearly the lesser of two evils.

A number of obvious reforms come to mind. Term limits for members of FIFA’s Executive would remove long-term insiders. Open voting would make members of the Executive accountable for their decisions. Most importantly, FIFA needs to accept some form of external oversight. International organisations always exist in a legal limbo, and FIFA is no exception. However, given the concentration of the game in Europe, the EU can and should bring pressure to bear on the federation to be more open in its dealings. While individual countries, most recently Greece and Poland, have found themselves suspended for interfering in their domestic federations, FIFA cannot ignore Europe as a whole. The obvious analogue is the steroid scandal in Major League Baseball in the USA. MLB had shown itself incapable of internal reform, and Congress stepped in to do what had to be done. FIFA has equally proven unable to change, and it is time someone changed them.

Football is, at heart, the beautiful game. But it is also a massive industry, and like all industries, it needs regulation.

Greg Bowler lives in Dublin and is an avid contrarian on all matters sporting, economic and political.