Naive England need to reform FIFA from the inside
Posted by DavidM in World Cup | 5 December 2010
The only surprising thing about the World Cup 2018 result is that England actually thought we could win it. Yes, we had a technically and commercially superior bid, of course we have a great footballing history and it's a given that we have a massive passion for the game.
But all the football fans I've ever spoken to have an unbridled disgust of FIFA and rank it alongside the Olympic Committee and Formula One as organisations with little interest in sport and it's supporters.
What exposes FIFA's lack of interest in fan's and the game's interest is not the Russia decision but the Qatar decision. How can you ask for 'technical' bids for analysis, talk about 'legacy' and passion for the game then give the World Cup to a nation of 300,000 people who are minnows in world football, will have to build the stadiums from scratch and have already admitted they will knock them down again afterwards as no-one there will use them.
England know the game and should either never have attempted to get the World Cup or should have played by FIFA's unwritten rules - what's in it for them?
So what now? There's no point trying to form a breakaway organisation. At worst we'll estrange ourselves further, at best we'll end up with the hell that boxing found itself in for years with fractured organisations running different titles that confused fans.
We can forget it ever happened and get on with our national game and keep paying lip-service to FIFA. This fixes nothing and leaves us fans increasingly frustrated.
For me there's only one course that is right for the FA. Starting with themselves (and let's not forget the English FA is hardly seen as an effective manager of English football) they need to address the fundamental problem with football governance - power without answer-ability.
The FA needs to redesign it's governance so that decisions are open and members can be held accountable. The English representatives at FIFA must be beyond reproach, refuse gifts outside the necessary to fulfil their roles (and publish those) and make their decisions available for scrutiny.
Then we need to persuade others to follow suit. We need to build a core of countries who openly, candidly behave differently. This will take time and the old guard at FIFA will work against it, but it is the only way to transform FIFA from the inside. Once there is sufficient support we need to get a new President, who doesn't wield absolute power but acts as Chairman, responsible to his executive for leading the organisation forward. FIFA then needs to also be made accountable, individual power must be limited and anti-corruption auditing must be made a key priority.
As fans, we must force the FA to acknowledge this and not push the blame all onto FIFA. They are part of that organisation and mustn't shy away from their responsibility to us. If the FA start to transform then they will have truly learnt from this failure.
Comments
I support the FIFA rerpot because it always happen about match-fixing in poor country since players lacked of finance, equipments, and others support from the federation. It becomes a good opportunity for them when they have chance for int'l football match, they can earn huge amount of money from betting. Don't blame players or coach, they should find the solutions and restore it to avoid such a shame statement.
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