BrothersJudd Blog: YET NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO ANY OF THEM...:

June 5, 2011

YET NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO ANY OF THEM...:

The awfulness of FIFA: An embarrassment to the beautiful game (The Economist, Jun 2nd 2011)

Under Mr Blatter’s predecessor, João Havelange, a wheeler-dealing Brazilian, FIFA became a mechanism for using revenues from the World Cup, the biggest sporting event on earth, to sustain a global network of patronage. Mr Blatter has honed the system as FIFA’s revenues from broadcasting and marketing rights have multiplied to more than $4 billion over a four-year cycle. In the four years up to 2010, after its contribution to the costs of the World Cup in South Africa, FIFA made a profit of $631m and kept a handsome $707m for its own operating expenses, while dispensing $794m to its 208 grateful member football associations, many of them poor and dependent on FIFA’s largesse. Each member association, regardless of its size, has one vote at FIFA’s congress, which elects the president. The other 23 members of the executive committee that runs the organisation are chosen by the regional confederations. Few in what Mr Blatter nauseatingly refers to as the “football family” have any interest in challenging the status quo.

Thanks mainly to muck-raking British journalists, a deep culture of corruption within FIFA has been exposed. Last year two members of the executive committee were suspended for soliciting bribes from undercover reporters. This year, following the vote to give Russia the 2018 World Cup and the bizarre decision for the competition in 2022 to be hosted by tiny, hot but extremely rich Qatar, the allegations have mounted. First, a whistleblower who worked for the Qatar bid team revealed that two executive committee members were each paid $1.5m for their backing. Then Lord Triesman, one-time leader of England’s 2018 bid, spoke of “improper and unethical” conduct by four more committee members. And last week, Chuck Blazer, an American FIFA bigwig, claimed two fellow members of the committee, Jack Warner and Mr Bin Hammam, had offered $40,000 bribes to Caribbean officials to vote against Mr Blatter. After both men were suspended, Mr Warner disclosed that he had received an e-mail from FIFA’s general secretary, Jerome Valcke, saying that Qatar had “bought” the World Cup. Mr Valcke admits sending the e-mail but disputes Mr Warner’s interpretation of it. All those accused deny any wrongdoing.