This really is one of the most obvious statements in the world: Fifa are corrupt. It’s right up there with: oil is a valuable resource; Hitler wasn’t very nice; and Badger loves mashed potato! For some reason the world has only just realised this and several members of Fifa have been hauled in front of Fifa’s own ethics committee to answer to these charges of corruption. The very fact Fifa have an ethics committee is actually quite amusing.
The main three members who were accused were CONCACAF president Jack Warner, Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam, and Fifa president Sepp Blatter. The first two are being accused of bribery with Bin Hammam attempting to knock Blatter off his perch in the upcoming Fifa presidential election by bribing officials for votes. Sepp Blatter is accused of letting it all happen.
The committee of course found that Blatter had no case to answer, and he walked away yet again without a stain on his gleaming character. The other two weren’t as lucky, both being told they did have a case to answer to. They were both subsequently suspended indefinitely until their cases have been heard. If they are found guilty, they would be ejected from Fifa and could be banned from any football activity altogether. But of course that won’t happen.
All of this stems from the World Cup voting where England found that playing fair got you nowhere in the world game. They rather naively did not offer bundles of cash for the delegates’ votes, and for that they paid the price, only receiving two votes and being eliminated in the first round of voting. I wouldn’t mind, but there isn’t a nation on this Earth better prepared for hosting a World Cup than England. Needless to say, eyebrows were raised.
It doesn’t really bother me too much that Russia won the bid but England should have definitely been a close contender, not eliminated in the first round like minnows. I think if this was the only travesty that happened I would have been able to swallow it, but the very fact that Qatar won the 2022 tournament was staggering. A country with ridiculously scorching summers, zero footballing history, and a questionable society, not to mention its minute size being a logistical nightmare!
It’s being suggested that Bin Hammam ‘bought’ the World Cup for Qatar. I’ve no idea how people could come to that conclusion. After the hearing Jack Warner faced the media in a rage and flapped printed emails at cameras spouting the ‘truth’ as he called it.
In this email between himself and Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke, Warner questioned the reasoning behind Bin Hammam’s running for presidency. Valcke replied with:
“For MBH [Mohamad Bin Hammam], I never understood why he was running. If really he thought he had a chance or just being an extreme way to express how much he does not like anymore JSB [Joseph Sepp Blatter]… Or he thought you can buy Fifa as they [Qatar] bought the WC [World Cup]”
Well I think it’s fairly obvious Qatar didn’t win the World Cup bid fair and square. Fifa will give the World Cup to anyone, heck, if penguins gave them enough fish, the next tournament would be held in Antarctica! Corruption sits at the core of Fifa, you can have a World Cup, but you’d better have the money to pay for those votes. Well ,more money than your rivals at least.
So what will happen now? Surely the bidding process for 2018 and especially 2022 should be redone, minus the corruption. How can this be fair on the likes of England and Australia who pumped millions into their bids when they might as well have filled a space shuttle with it all and sent it to Mars.
The FA have said they will abstain on the ultimately pointless Fifa presidential vote, now with only one almighty candidate in Sepp Blatter. But if it were up to me I’d go further than that. The football associations of the world need to band-up together and say “no more.” Walk out on Fifa. Imagine if England, France, Germany, Australia, USA, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Mexico and everyone else just packed up their stuff and walked out.
Start a new Fifa, call it whatever you like: the World Association of Footballing Nations; Fifa version. 2.0; the International Football Federation; I don’t really care as long as we all get out of there! The 2018 and 2022 World Cups? Don’t attend. Let them have their tournament, we’ll have our own. A bigger, better tournament that promotes fairness to all nations within the organisation.
We’ll put real, footballing people in the top jobs, those who know about the game and what it needs, not pencil pushing politicians trying to pick up votes for cash and only holding tournaments so as to line their pockets with dirty money. There’ll be no more inconsistency or corruption. We’ll have an actual functioning ethics committee and an independent one as well to make sure what happened at Fifa doesn’t happen again.
Fifa is beyond saving. It is poisoned to its very core. The FA for all that’s wrong with it, can still be saved. It’s the Darth Vader of the footballing world: corrupted but still salvageable. Fifa? Well they’re too far gone, simply beyond saving. Sepp Blatter is the Emperor Palpatine of the footballing world, dictating and ruling over all of his minions and crushing anyone who opposes him.
Well I think it’s about time someone picked him up and threw him down an elevator shaft.
Here’s to a fairer world game.
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