When you shoot yourself in the foot, it’s painful but you can limp to safety. When you take out both feet, it’s a slow crawl to get help. It’s precisely a similar situation that FIFA finds itself in right now. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association is the governing body for football, futsal and beach football. It finds itself in a very mucky situation right now. Many of its senior committee members have been arrested, its secretary general and president put on leave and suspended, respectively. All of this on charges of corruption dating back to more than two decades.
Sepp Blatter has been the president of FIFA since 1998. For almost 20 years he guided the governing body through a transition. Football has always been the world’s most loved and most watched sport. He took it to another level. World Cups were more extravagant and brought in great commercial revenue. The big football leagues across the world “ English, German, Spanish, Brazilian, American etc, reaped these benefits too, leveraging star players for great commercial deals and tv revenues. The UEFA, Europe’s governing body, built their Champions League into the world’s biggest club tournament. Sepp Blatter was master and commander of all he surveyed. But now he stands on the outside, suspended by the FIFA ethics committee.
In May 2015, investigators led by the FBI, arrested over 10 FIFA executives. Not too long ago, Jerome Valcke, the secretary general of FIFA, was first put on leave and now suspended on allegations of a ticket scam. It is suspected that he leaked all the tickets that were on the black market for the 2014 world cup in Brazil. More corruption allegations came out of the woodwork. Bribes paid to executives during the 1998 world cup in France, rigged votes for the 2018 and 2022 world cups, in Russia and Qatar. Blatter is not indicted yet, but as the president he is under serious suspicion. Despite the fact that he won the recent election in June, he is now president no more.
What is worse, is that the two self-proclaimed successors to the FIFA throne, claiming clean background, are also suspended. Both Michel Platini, UEFA head and the Korean Chung Mong-joon, who was a long time member of the executive committee are also suspended for 90 days. Whether they bounce back is another question.
The situation is bleak. The football world cup has more viewers across the world than the Olympics and a few other tournaments put together. Its popularity is without doubt. How then do you raise the game back up from the murky depths it has been plunged into, by greed and vested interests? It is time for transparency to take over.
Many football leagues, including the bigger ones in England, Spain and Germany, follow the Sepp Blatter formula. This has to now change. The time for massive money exchanging hands should be passé. But then, will that ever happen? Football should be about the game and not just the profits. On February 26, 2016, there will be another election. There is no clear candidate to lead FIFA to fresh new heights. But there is still time.
