Who governs soccer?
The answer should be simple. Some 209 countries orterritories are signed up to FIFA and ordinarily its rule should be final. Butnow, FIFA, is under internal investigation. Its authority will be compromiseduntil it answers accusations of corruption in the process that granted WorldCup staging rights to Russia and Qatar and unless its own presidential election process is proved to be abovesuspicion.
Even so, the laws of the global game remain FIFA’s toimpose. But three of the principle European countries in soccer appear to bemaking their own arrangements.
In England, the Parliament is trying to dictate to theFootball Association, just how it should run the sport. And that is against thefirst statute in FIFA.
France Football, the magazine that shares with FIFA theawarding of the annual Ballons d’Or to the best players, carried a 15-pagecover story this week that it called “Le Qatargate.”
France Football asserted, and Platini denied, that his votefor Qatar 2022 was cast in 2010 with heavy political input from NicolasSarkozy, then the French president.
Sports politics in England and France, whatever next?
Germany is the role model. It is not surprising that PepGuardiola, opted for Bayern Munich rather than teams in England, Spain or Italy“ or even the Middle East, where he was toward the end of his playing career,in Qatar.
Munich has a solid base and its main administrators all havea genuine grounding as former notable players in the game.
Chief among them is Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the chairman ofBayern, who also happens to be chairman of the European Club Association, whichlobbies FIFA and UEFA for the rights of 207 member clubs. It gives Rummeniggetwo voices “ as leader of a prestigious team and as spokesman for the clubshe competes against.
This week, Rummenigge called for a shift for the club seasonfrom the winter to spring and summer. Platini had wanted the Qatar World Cup tobe moved out of the hot, possibly debilitating summer heat into the shade ofthe winter of 2022.
“My sense is that we are heading in that direction,”Rummenigge told France Football.
If the season is moved for one World Cup, he suggests, whynot move the European club season permanently? “Be it Germany, France orEngland,” he says, “summer is the best period, yet it is the season we don’tplay. In deepest winter, we play nearly all the time in conditions disagreeablefor players and spectators. It is not logical.”
Rummenigge does not say “ no one can “ when the frosts mighthit soccer. However, Umberto Gandini, the A.C. Milan official who is theEuropean clubs’ vice chairman to Rummenigge, said changing the season “comes asa really nice surprise, but is not reflective of the position of the E.C.A.”
If it were, it would put the clubs against FIFA and UEFA,whose profits largely come from tournaments held in the clubs’ off-season. Andwhat about the rights of other sports whose time to flourish has always been insummer?
FIFA, were it in full control, might swat down itsconstituent members. Barely two years ago, the ruling body threatened Nigeriawith expulsion from soccer because its government attempted to withdraw theteam after its poor showing at the 2010 World Cup.
For two years and more, the British government has beentrying to impose change on the Football Association in England. The message isthat either soccer changes its governance, or change will be forced upon it bygovernment. If FIFA is listening “ and is not hamstrung by its own problems “maybe England will be warned off as Nigeria was.
