Corruption and Collusion Threaten Integrity of Major Tournaments

Recently there have been lots of allegations thrown about regarding the race to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The decision is set to be announced on 2nd December however when the winners are announced, who will be able to guarantee the winners deserve to win?

The 24 members of the FIFA Executive Committee are the people who vote for which country they think should host the World Cup. With such a big decision resting on so few people, integrity is a must, but FIFA have taken a hard line on those believed to be selling their votes. Two of the members, Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii, have been provisionally suspended after a newspaper ’sting’ discovered they were willing to sell their votes.

With huge sums of money alleged to potentially change hands, these members stood to make a decent profit. Added to the fact that the ballot is secret, who is to say that these people could not sell their votes to more than one country, a risky but profitable strategy. The FIFA Ethics Committee are conducting a full investigation into these officials, along with four more who aren’t involved in the bidding process, with a decision set to be made in mid-November.

So that’s corruption, what about collusion? FIFA’s decision to decide on the next two World Cup hosts at once has created the chance for collusion to occur. Another accusation made in the press is that organisers of the joint bid from Spain and Portugal for the 2018 World Cup and organisers of the Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup have agreed to support each other in their respective bids. The head of the Portuguese Football Federation Gilberto Madail says he received the allegations with ’surprise and indignation’, and the fact that these have come from a newspaper in England, one of their bidding rivals, may well affect the English bid.

However these allegations aren’t just limited to the World Cup bidding process. A former Cyprus football official, Spyros Marangos, has claimed that money changed hands in relation to the Euro 2012 host decision. The championships will be hosted in Poland and Ukraine and some people found this surprising with Italy among the other bidders. Italy won an initial vote, but was beaten by Poland and Ukraine in the final vote. Marangos is believed to have evidence and UEFA will investigate should he submit this evidence to them.

Now spare a thought for Lord Triesman, who was forced to resign from his post as chairman of the England bid team and the FA for merely suggesting there could be something fishy going on in the bidding process. Whilst his particular allegations were unfounded, maybe we shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss him.

The FIFA Executive Committee (well, the 22 members who haven’t been suspended) will meet on Thursday and Friday to discuss the voting procedure. With their credibility at stake, they may well decide to have a more transparent vote but transparency is something FIFA isn’t traditionally well know for.

You may remember the farcical situation when the England bid team bought handbags for the wives of all the members of the Executive Committee. What made it a farce was that no-one knew if it was against the rules because FIFA refused to publish them. Eventually FIFA agreed to publish some of them (you can find them here). FIFA have said they won’t delay the votes to decide the hosts for the upcoming World Cups, but it looks likely they could be thrown into chaos if any allegations are proven correct.

FIFA, Politics and Society