As the old saying goes, never discuss money, religion or politics at the dinner table. These days anyone who wants to talk football could well find themselves talking all three.
Fans of football over the past 20 years have already watched the beautiful game become beholden to the almighty dollar (and euro and rouble and riyal).
However, in recent times football has also become a serious political football as the powers of the world jostle and squabble over which of them will hold the sport’s biggest tournaments.
Perhaps the greatest prize of all is the right to host the FIFA World Cup. The World Cup hosts experience a flood of tourism, guaranteed participation, home ground advantage, and more importantly the global publicity, legitimacy and status that comes with hosting.
It is a major diplomatic coup. And it seems that nations will stop at nothing to secure world football’s biggest prize.
Despite all the finger pointing that has gone on during FIFA’s implosion, truth is that all the bidding nations have thrown insane amounts of money at their bids, and have used excessive measures such as uninterrupted green traffic lights as FIFA reps were shown the red carpet around their cities. Australia for its part sank $42 million into its bid, which included $500,000 for Jack Warner.
As it turns out, the US was pipped by Russia for the 2018 World Cup. In response the US Department of Justice investigated payments made to CONCACAF officials, casting a shadow over the South African, Russian and Qatari World Cup bids.
Whether the US had the jurisdiction to investigate these payments has been a matter of hot international debate. Russian president Vladimir Putin criticised the US investigation as “another blatant attempt [by the US] to extend its jurisdiction to other states”.
At a recent meeting of the G7 US president Barrack Obama said that “it’s important for FIFA to be able to operate with integrity and transparency and integrity”.
Just pause a moment to put that in perspective. Two of the world’s most powerful leaders, men with their fingers on massive military might – including the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals – are going tit for tat over the awarding of a football tournament.
A few weeks ago president Putin spoke on a number of global strategic issues while at a finance meeting in Saint Petersburg. Putin raised ISIS, Iranian nuclear ambitions, the Ukrainian War and, you guessed it, the 2018 World Cup. So football is now one of the four major global strategic issues between the US and Russia, and we haven’t even begun the investigation into the 2018 tournament yet.
If that wasn’t enough, the world’s largest Muslim organisation has also thrown its weight behind Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, hitting back at Western criticism of Qatar’s dealings with FIFA and the corruption probe into their bid. In a statement on their website the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) stressed its support to Qatar and criticised “Western media tendentious campaigns”.
Qatari foreign minister Khalid al-Attiyah reportedly told Reuters that criticism of the Qatari bid was due to prejudice and racism. It is not too hard to see the even more serious turn that the debate over the World Cup could take.
Phew. Are we still actually talking about football?
Closer to home, football has also taken a serious political turn in Indonesia, which has been kicked out of the qualifiers for both the 2018 World and 2019 Asian Cups. Long story short, the Indonesian Ministry of Sport wanted three teams kicked out of the Indonesian PSSI national competition.
FIFA (in its exalted status as moral guardian of free football) has decreed that governments aren’t actually allowed to meddle in national competitions, and gave the Indonesian government until May 29 to sort it out. The Indonesian government wasn’t in a mood to negotiate and so FIFA barred Indonesia from fielding a team in either competition – in yet another example of FIFA at loggerheads with a national government.
In Australia, the FFA have just appointed Mark Falvo as the new head of international affairs and government relations. It’s a new position that the FFA have created in response to the ongoing politicisation of football both at home and abroad.
Think about it. The FFA now have a head of international relations. Falvo is a seasoned campaigner of Australia’s Asian Cup and the FFA Cup development, and is arguably a good choice for this role. But the fact that this is needed at all is pretty eye-opening.
Where all this is going, and whether football will ever be free from politics again, is anyone’s guess. Football has been bought and sold for decades now, and will probably continue to be a political football as well.
Would the US have investigated if they had won the 2018 World Cup? Probably not. Will Sepp Blatter’s replacement be able to stamp out corruption? Probably not. Will we ever be able to enjoy a non-political World Cup? Only time will tell. Every day fans can only watch this competition from the stands.
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