Transparency the key to a new FIFA

brilliant!

Very good points, Ben. It's good to have input from someone who has a grasp of the issues confronting Fifa. I should point out in (iv), henceforth, hosting rights for the Fifa WC will now be decided by the Fifa Congress; not the ExCo. In relation to (iii) - I totally agree. But, I doubt that would even get 1 vote of approval from the Fifa Congress. You should check out how Platini's son has benefited from his dad's voting for Qatar to host WC2022. Could be coincidence, of course. ;-) Finally, even with all those measures, if I'm bidding for the TV rights to the next Copa America how can Fifa stop me from bribing the person at Conmebol in charge of selling those rights? As you would imagine, bribes are done off-the-book, so no governance committee would ever be aware that I paid the bribe or the person received the bribe. Obviously I would recommend we use a bank in the Cayman Islands to deposit the funds; not the bank on the corner of Wall Street & Hanover.

Transparency is a great way forward in this instance as there is a sufficiently large and motivated public to put the effort into monitoring. A few steps that may be worth considering include: (i) the development of a truly independent anti-corruption monitoring body (as opposed to the "governance committee") (ii) the requirement that no-one on the executive, nor their families, make money from football (or at least are sufficiently removed from the business of football) (iii) No FIFA members nor their families are allowed to engage in business with FIFA or any of its constituent parts (iv) Voting for major tournaments is put to the entire FIFA membership (it makes vote buying a much more expensive and dangerous undertaking) (v) a revision of the "no government interference" provisions which has allowed a level of impunity within some federations There are many others however these would make a good start.

Outstanding stuff! One of the all time great comments.

Wow i hope more see this. This post deserved to be on an article with much higher traffic.

I'd probably start by reading the business pages of my newspaper of choice. I recommend the AFR, it really is Australia's best business daily. I mean, it must be - the entire thing is business page! I'd even try to chuckle at "Alex". After this reading, I would be suitably informed that everyone, everywhere, from the UN down to my local butcher, is hopelessly corrupt. Recognising the extent of this corruption, I would decide that there was no point taking any steps to implement even the most minor or gradual changes because, as all business-minded adults know, if something can't be perfect there is no reason to waste your time trying to make it slightly better. This would resolve the immediate issue at hand, and we could all move on to more pressing matters. Having demonstrated that there was, in fact, no problem to resolve, I would post a torrent of condescending, pompous garbage on the internet and compare myself favourably to Frank Lowy. At some point I might invite people to smell... things. What about you, Fuss?

What is astounding is how and why it took this long. There were major alarm bells going off well before the bidding book was required to be submitted back in Dec 2009. The disappointing aspect is how readily Australians hitched their wagon to the gravy train - other peoples gravy train that is. Things looked very odd at the time. Why has it taken so long for the AFP to get involved? And how accountable should the FFA be? And - Ernst and Young who audited the FFA bid expenses. They may yet find their reputation at very least tainted? At any rate - what sort of bidding process is run where putting money into a proposed project in the Caribbean is seen as a valid component? Even if it turned out above board. And now Nick Xenaphon is after an audit by the Auditor General of Australia. The farce that was the CONCACAF inquiry run by Michael Garcia showed FIFA's own ethics committee (Les Murray anyone?) to be - well - of dubious ethics. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/13/farce-fifa-michael-garcia-erroneous-ethics-report

"Transparency the key to a new FIFA" Indeed it is. If you were appointed President of Ffia what are the 5 structural changes you would make to ensure more transparency. And, would your new improved transparent Fifa structure have prevented Marketing Executives who wanted to secure TV rights for the Copa America & Gold Cup from bribing the person from Conmebol & Concacaf who were selling the Tv rights? Every football fan & person who never comments about football has made the ambit claim: Transparency the key to a new FIFA. How will that work? And how will it stop corrupt corporate executives wanting to buy football TV rights, from bribing corrupt individuals who are selling the football TV rights?

We have to be careful what we wish for. Do we really want Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, Spain, Italy etc. to have all the say as to how the game is developed? To say that Australia's vote is worth less than that of China or Fiji or South Sudan or any other country is not the answer. No voting blocks and a none secret ballots may be the part of the answer. Why should any one be worried who sees who they voted for to host a World Cup or who they want on the Executive Committee. If it's published and documented for all to see, less chance of a person/country being bought. I'm not 100% sure that the money spent by FIFA in developing the game in the smaller African, Central American, Pacific nations, and Asian countries is all to do with any type of corruption. I would want that money to be spent on the game in those regions, that is why the game is so popular. Does FIFA need to spend money in Europe's big footballing nations to help them develop the game, I don't think so, they generate enough money to support and grow their own game. So FIFA are going to continue to spend money where it is needed to be spent, what any incoming administration has to do is to ensure every thing is open and above board. Put a spot light on the whole organisation, so there are no shadows or darks corners where criminals can lurk and conduct business.

I'm not so sure we'd have a better FIFA if the votes went too far the other way, leaving the big countries with the biggest clubs with all of the power. One of the reasons Football has had such amazing growth has been that it really does look after the little guy. It has pumped millions into Asia, North America and Africa to grow the game. All countries generally have equal access to all the youth cups with the world cup being the only one where the big players get more of a say. Compare it to cricket or rugby where the sports haven't grown nearly as much because the entrenched powers only provide piecemeal support to "associate" nations and look after their own wallets much more. I totally agree the system is corrupt and full of cronyism and the body needs to be a LOT more transparent. There shouldn't be kickbacks for votes, bribes for votes, preferential treatment for executives/congressmen. Their needs to be a clear charter with a clear allocation of funds. It needs a complete overhaul. My biggest fear is that the pendulum will swing way too far to the powerful block of Europe. The voting system should change too but without Guam or St Vincent's having the same vote as Brazil or Germany then they'd never have a chance of featuring at the World Cup - the big boys wouldn't see a need for them. The big boys would see more money by having more of their mates make the cut and would change the quotas to work that way. Yes lets scream for change, its definitely needed but be careful what sort of change we wish for.

Chuck Blazer says he took bribes for France 98. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/03/fifa-chuck-blazer-bribes-world-cup

The whole system is flawed. It is madness that the likes of St Vincents and the Grenadines, South Sudan and Guam have the same amount of political power as Brazil, England or the Netherlands. The AFC and CAF are now dominating FIFA congress, not due to footballing prowess, political but because they have a much larger number of states in their jurisdiction. This is nothing other than utterly farcial. The game is being hijacked by the elite, particularly those of Russia and the Middle East, who are using the mass voting power of these insignificant football states to further their own ends whilst fans and players get shafted. Voting power in FIFA Congress should be based on an algorithm with inputs potentially comprising of population, number of professional clubs, number of participants and/or FIFA Rankings. It might entrench the already powerful nations, but sod it, I'd feel a lot better knowing the likes of England, Germany and Netherlands were making the decisions rather than Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia