By the time you read this, the FIFA election will have happened and a new president will have been voted in. As if we cared.
We don’t care because nothing much will change at FIFA. Nothing much will change, because the very idea of FIFA is flawed and will mean that it can’t change in substance. FIFA exists principally to organise the World Cup, rake in all the cash it generates, and then supposedly distribute that cash around the world in football-esq projects. You have to think, therefore, that the president of FIFA is a sort of Father Christmas character who just showers you with money. Once he has given you the money, his job is pretty well done. What you decide to do with it, in your country, is somewhat up to you. Perhaps some of it never leaves Switzerland; it just changes bank accounts. Some of it will be used to build a new stadium, a plush football headquarters, or at least partially build those things. There certainly doesn’t appear to be a great deal of governance.
The idea of democracy is that it promotes fair and inclusive government. The fairer, more inclusive and less corrupt a government is, the better a country or organisation is generally run which is why the Western democracies set such store on probity. FIFA looks very democratic, from the outside. Every country gets a vote; every country gets a say. Unfortunately, that means that Vanuatu’s opinion is just as important as Germany’s, which in football terms doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense. There are a lot more footballers and football fans in Germany than in Micronesia. The other essential problem for most of the world, is that their only interest in FIFA is how much money they are going to get out of it. This would imply that it’s quite easy to buy their votes, even if none of the money was actually remitted in a brown envelope or to an offshore bank account.
Arte’s 2 hour, TV documentary Planet FIFA showed how, from the very moment that FIFA took to the international stage, corruption was endemic and institutionalised. Votes are bought for everything, from the presidency, to the attribution of World Cups. Sponsorship deals are corrupt as well. FIFA really is a Mafia.
Voting in a new president, in these circumstances, is just like putting a sticking plaster on someone with several broken ribs, a broken leg and a ruptured spleen: it’s just not going to make any difference whatsoever. The real solution would be for the Swiss to dissolve the whole enterprise on the premise that it is in fact a criminal organisation. Then FIFA could be totally rebuilt anew on entirely different principles.
It’s a money-making enterprise and thus should be run like any other money-making enterprise. Company boards are not elected by their suppliers or even customers. People are sought and appointed to the top jobs. It’s not perfect, but it seems to be better than most other systems. Paradoxically, democracy just can’t work in some circumstances.
I’m not big on presidents. You might think that the purpose of a president would be to preside over meetings, get buy-in, smooth the waters, help set policy and direction. But these days, presidents appear to be more like kings, living in palaces, travelling first class, setting the rules, consolidating their powerbases. You only have to look at France to see that the kings and emperors never really went away. They are just called presidents now. And naturally, there is barely a credible president in the whole of Africa. If you want see a real presidency in action, ironically you need look no further than Switzerland where the presidency of the governing council changes every year, and president is a purely honorary title – the person who has to do all the protocol for foreign visits and the like.
It is heartening to see that the FIFA president, whatever else they do with the organisation, now only gets one term of 4 years. Their time with their nose in the trough now being limited at least to some degree. The idea of someone like Blatter going on and on and on is quite clearly ridiculous. He saw himself as a king, demanding to be treated in all countries like a head of state. And what guarantee do we have that the future president won’t expect the same honours?
FIFA is not fit for purpose and it’s high time it bit the (Qatari) dust.