- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke probably never said the line so famously attributed to him, but in the wake of so many football scandals, I wonder what the Irish philosopher would think about our attitudes to reporting them?
When the English press dared scratch the seamy surface of FIFA’s Machiavellian underbelly, it’s safe to say senior vice-president Julio Grondona was unimpressed.
“We always have attacks from England,” bellowed Grondona at the recent FIFA Congress, where Sepp Blatter was re-elected uncontested.
“Mostly with lies and the support of a journalism which is more busy lying than telling the truth,” he added with a flourish.
“Would you please leave the FIFA family alone?”
No doubt Grondona would dearly love every journalist to drop off the face of the planet, because it was the probing of the English press which did so much to discredit the recent FIFA elections and throw the legitimacy of the World Cup bidding process into doubt.
Yet, for all the revelations about envelopes stuffed with cash changing hands and the publishing of leaks about World Cups being “bought,” it seemed many football fans around the globe were nonplussed reading about events off the pitch.
Even so, I was puzzled to read a blog on the Green And Gold Army website by freelance journalist Michael Huguenin claiming he “didn’t care” about the FIFA presidential election.
“(W)hen I see a game like the Champions League Final I feel that what happens at FIFA HQ in Geneva (sic) has, in the grand scheme of things, very little bearing on what we as football supporters get out of the game,” Huguenin wrote.
I thought the Champions League final was a cracking spectacle myself, but I’ve been around the game long enough to know that allowing administrators carte blanche to wield untrammelled power results in precisely the kind of scandals now engulfing football’s governing body.
Which is why I didn’t lose too much sleep over Fairfax duo Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker alleging that Sydney FC breached the salary cap in their title-winning 2009-10 campaign.
McKenzie and Baker are investigative journalists of some repute, but their allegations have been publicly slammed by Football Federation Australia and privately scoffed at by Sydney FC officials, their key source “declined to speak” and the only voice who was heard was less than charitably described by the FFA as a “disgruntled ex-employee.”
The allegations relied heavily on hearsay and conjecture, but if they force the FFA to provide more transparency in the way the salary cap is handled, does the end justify the means?
Or should we, as Australian football fans, turn a blind eye to potentially embarrassing stories for fear of the damage they may cause to an already fragile league?
I certainly hope Sydney FC didn’t rort the salary cap, and I’d expect changes within the FFA if they did.
However, I think it’s incumbent upon Baker and McKenzie to provide more conclusive evidence before we make up our minds.
But although I approach Baker and McKenzie’s report with some scepticism, I respect the right of any journalist to ask hard questions, even if those questions prove uncomfortable for lovers of the round-ball game.
And I certainly can’t abide by an attitude which turns a blind eye to what happens off the pitch because it’s not as “beautiful” as what happens on it.
Even if Edmund Burke never quoted his famous line, I’d like to think a man of such steadfast morals would have taken a stand against corruption and potential rorts no matter what the circumstances.
And as desirable as a steady stream of positive football news stories would be, I don’t think we can simply turn our backs on the negative ones just because they make us feel bad.