World Cup 2018 / 2022: FIFA – Forging legacies or causing suspicious farce?

What do you get for the man who has everything? Well, nothing, according to FIFA. The decision taken today by the executive committee to award the World Cup to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 openly demonstrate FIFA’s intention to spread the game to all the corners of the globe.

At face value this is an admirable policy, and one which is difficult to criticise. Of the nine bids and eleven nations vying for 2018 and 2022 only three nations are yet to host a major international tournament. FIFA’s decision now reduces that figure to one – Australia, who are entitled to feel more aggrieved than any other nation involved having been completely overlooked.

Legacy

Like him or loathe him (and, if there weren’t already, from today there will be more people baying for his blood than Julian Assange) one of the lasting aims of Sepp Blatter’s FIFA presidency has been to make the game more inclusive – more of a world game than it has been previously. Blatter was keen to have South Africa host the World Cup as far back as 2006, but the voting system denied him by one vote. Subsequently, FIFA changed it’s statutes to rotate the tournament around the continents. Blatter wanted an African World Cup and, belatedly, he got it in 2010.

Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 are extensions of that desire. At face value (a line that needs repeating), these intentions are honourable and not to be sniffed at. Why should USA, hosts in 1994, hold another World Cup ahead of first timers? Likewise Japan and South Korea. Their time was in 2002. England’s time was further back, in 1966, but at least their time came under the watchful eye of then FIFA president Stanley Rous, an Englishman. Qatar has never had it’s time under the global football spotlight, nor Russia.

Creating a tangible domestic legacy was always going to play a part in the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. “Football for Hope is the cornerstone of our corporate social responsibility programme,” Blatter commented on a new FIFA initiative back in 2009. “The objective is to support, advise and strengthen sustainable social and human development programmes.” Creating a legacy was a key part of the ticket for South Africa 2010 and this element has clearly played a part in Russia and Qatar’s winning bids. That has to be congratulated.

So then why so much suspicion? Why the anger? Why the whispers of fishy business? Why the investigative reports?

The other element of this whole bidding process, the part of it that will cloud both World Cup decisions and possibly lead to serious repercussions in terms of FIFA’s own reputation, is the perceived murkiness of it all. The smoke and mirrors. The cloaks and daggers, the men shuffling around in sharp suits and seated behind darkened windows of chauffeured limousines.

Shady business?

Think about it for a second. The World Cup is worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds both to FIFA and to the host nations they choose. In 2009’s financial results FIFA announced turnover of over $1 billion for the first time, and the World Cup is their major source of revenue. Nations and governments invite FIFA into their living rooms and wilfully sign documents waiving their own domestic laws. FIFA stroll in and out of nations with tax-free revenue for hosting World Cups. The power and influence they yield globally is monstrous.

And yet, after all this, the bidding process involves just twenty-four men. Twenty-four FIFA executive committee members, no less, one of whom was recently described by former FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen as being “the biggest gangster you will find on earth.”  They walk into a private room, mark their cards and walk out, decisions made. With so much power and so little accountability how can we not expect this trust to be abused in some way?

With the decisions for 2018 and 2022 announced, people will and have already turned their collective default reactions to “ridiculous!” and “more proof of FIFA corruption!” Twitter and public forums have already been awash with derision for both the winning bidders and FIFA.

Unfortunate England

Personally I fail to see how Russia and Qatar winning the rights to host the World Cups in any way proves any idea of corruption. What I do find hard to understand, and what FIFA will find very hard to explain away is the fact that England’s bid received a mere 2 votes out of 22 – or 1 single vote if you take Geoff Thompson’s vote as a given. Under what realistic criteria can England’s bid – clearly deemed as one of the most low risk – finish last and receive a paltry 2 votes? “It was almost as if we were being dismissed, as if we didn’t count for anything,” commented Rodney Marsh after the verdict.

On the criteria for any successful bid, in FIFA’s own words: “the very highest standards of TV broadcasting, information and telecommunications technology, transport and accommodation are an absolute must.” Yet in their own Bid Evaluation Report released after FIFA’s Inspection Team visited all the bidding countries, Russia was deemed ‘high risk’ for airport and international transport while Qatar’s overall operational risk was also considered ‘high risk.’ Indeed of all nine bidding teams, Russia and Qatar were announced as the pair with the highest overall operational risk.

With a low-risk operation and an excellent bidding presentation, what reasoning can the executive committee (ExCo) give then for so wilfully dismissing England? What made England’s bid so overwhelmingly unappealing?

Many will draw their own conclusions to that. The faint yells I can hear from the fast-approaching angry vigilante group marching down the street in the distance seem to be pinning blame on the BBC and Sunday Times for their investigative techniques.

US Soccer President Sunil Gulati, who failed to convince the ExCo even with the collective charm of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Morgan Freeman by his side, had some ideas. “”It’s politics, it’s friendships and relationships, it’s alliances, it’s tactics,” Gulati said in a conference call after the announcement.

England’s bid may well have stood out from a technical standpoint, but in terms of politics, friendships, relationships and alliances the game of Russian Roulette has clearly backfired.

England, FIFA, Politics and Society, Qatar, Russia, Sepp Blatter, World Cup 2018, World Cup 2022