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.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
"One of the problems is that in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia it’s quite acceptable practice to make a payment to win business. In the west we call this corruption." No. In the west, we call it "Lobbying" or "fund raising". When you get a chance, have a read of what has been presented to ICAC. Watch last Monday night's 4 Corners. Review the dealings of the AWB (Australian Wheat Board) in Iraq. Review the dealings of Rio Tinto & Chinese Steel Mills. Review the corrupt behaviour of "Securency" and "Note Printing Australia" which are subsidiaries of the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia). Etc. Etc. Etc. Don't be naive. "Payments for business" occurs in every country on earth.
RBBAnonymous
Guest
"One of the problems is that in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia it’s quite acceptable practice to make a payment to win business. In the west we call this corruption." I had to lol at Laurence Plant's answer. That doesn't happen in the west :))
144
Roar Guru
It all starts with the corrupt influence in the FIFA Corporation starting with the likes of Sepp Blatter and Jack Warner.
James
Guest
its quite acceptable to make pay offs and the like in the west aswell, we just pretend that it doesnt happen and act all shocked when we are caught out.
Laurence Plant
Roar Rookie
Thanks for reading Stephen. I take your point that football has had traditional links to some political leaders, but I still reckon that we have not seen this level of competition between nations over football before. I think all hell is going to break loose as the US tries to undermine Russia's world cup, and England undermines Qatar's world cup. I don't think we've seen this kind of competition before. In terms of your point about western power, I actually think the issue is that there is no central authority in the game. One of the problems is that in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia it's quite acceptable practice to make a payment to win business. In the west we call this corruption. It is the multi-polar nature of the power structures in football that mean the competition between spheres such as the west and the middle east will continue. L.
Stephen A
Roar Rookie
Football has always been political and will always be political, one example off the top of my head is when Mussolini used the Italian national team as his propaganda tool during his reign when Italy won their first World Cup in the 1930's. What's changing is that the 'new world' (UAE, Qatar) has been pumping absurd amounts of money into football across Europe and other parts of the world, buying clubs and media companies/rights, but the 'old world' (Northern Euorpe (I'm not going list all the major football powerhouses but you get my point) don't like this idea that someone else is having a say on something that they have been controlling for many years. They are happy to take their money, but not let them have a say in the administration of the sport. On one side, it seems like the Europeans want to re-gain some sort of imperial control over FIFA again and take care of themselves and isolate the other Football associations (think it was in the 1970's that Joao Havelenge wrestled power away from the Euro nations after he won the FIFA presidential election). The other side is that the rest of the world thinks that is FIFA is controlled by UEFA, it will be a return to the days when Europe looked after their own and cared little of the rest of the Football world. You make a good point about whether the US has jurisdiction to investigate FIFA, how they can arrest the FIFA members for corruption and fraud but not charge any of the big US banks that caused the global recession in 2009. FIFA's conduct over the last 20 off years has been pretty deplorable and there should be an investigation into their financial dealings (which I think will lead to the FFA having some serious questions being asked of them). First post on The Roar by the way, glad to discover a good sports forum like this!
MelbCro
Guest
Football has always been political, so saying that its a recent (past 20 years) phenomenon is rubbish.
Midfielder
Guest
Enjoyed the read some interesting info ad well re the FFA