FIFA

     

Feds Investigating Fraudulent Anarchy (FIFA)





All jokes aside, FIFA, which really stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association or, for all you Americans out there, the International Federation of Association Football is an incredibly powerful and influential organization. FIFA is the highest governing body of Association Football, or soccer, worldwide. The mega organization was erected in 1904 by a handful of European countries, those being Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, with the task of overseeing international competition among these founding countries. FIFA’s membership has now grown to include 211 national football associations. Each association is a member of one of six regional confederations which include: Africa, Asia, Europe, North & Central America and the Caribbean, Oceania, and South America.

FIFA Global Conference Map


FIFA has publicly outlined a number of goals, the most prominent of those being: to aid in growing football internationally, to provide efforts to ensure football is accessible to everyone, and to advocate for integrity and fair play. FIFA is non-profit organization and is responsible for the organization and oversight of the world's largest single sport sporting event, the World Cup. To put into perspective just how big a deal the World Cup really is, the 2015 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle SeaHawks, which was the most heavily viewed Super Bowl in NFL history, garnered the attention of just shy of 150 million viewers worldwide. In comparison, over one billion people tuned in to watch the France v. Croatia final in the 2018 World Cup. Keep in mind, that was just 1 of 64 games. The 2018 World Cup generated revenues of over 4.6 billion dollars, and the 2015-2018 World Cup cycle ended with a net profit of 1.2 billion dollars.

On paper then, FIFA is a great organization. It is a non-profit that has a defined set of positive goals and brings money to countries and joy to billions of viewers. If only FIFA were in reality what it seems to be on paper. FIFA is not merely a soccer related body. Due to its position, it has been unavoidable for the organization to escape entanglement in international relations and human rights issues. FIFA is, in fact, a member of the UN. Apart from that, as a country, becoming a member of FIFA is one of the clearest signals that a nation has been recognized by the international community. To cite an example, when Nigeria joined the league, it was widely reported as a major breakthrough for international unity.



Nigerias Men's National Team




Due to the popularity and subsequent buying power of the World Cup, FIFA exerts an influence over most of the world. Countries wage bidding wars, over the right to host the World Cup. Unfortunately, it seems that high-ranking FIFA employees are not immune to private, internal bidding. Mohammad bin Hammam, who was in the running for President of FIFA, left the organization after major allegations that he had bribed several FIFA officials in order to secure Qatar’s bid, reportedly offering 40,000 dollars to members of the Carribean Football Union. Hammam, predictably, denied allegations of bribery. Despite his resignation, the 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar. Qatar being picked as the host country isn’t only questionable because of the selection process. In the summer Qatar’s field can reach temperatures of 122 degrees, for this reason FIFA has decided that the World Cup will be held in winter, with the final game being scheduled for the night before Christmas Eve. This bizarre change of schedule puts the World Cup in direct competition with other sporting events. Furthermore, Qatar does not yet have the infrastructure to support the event, so it will have to build everything from scratch, a not uncommon practice for small host countries. Still, Qatar is forging ahead at impressive speed to be ready to host the Winter World Cup in 2022. Its efforts are being guided by FIFA, which inot necessarily a good thing.



Sepp Blatter announcing the location of the 2022 World Cup


Qatar is a poor country, depending on cheap Nepalian immigrant labor to complete the construction necessary for this endeavour. Qatar is by no means the only country that has used questionable labor practices in a World Cup building effort, but the continued deaths of the Nepalese working on the site is the freshest example of such abuses. South Africa saw strikes over allegations that workers were working more than 18 hour days for the equivalent pay of 23 dollars. The over-scheduled expansion processes of the Sao Paolo airport in Brazil to accommodate anticipated traffic increases lead to an investigation by the BBC which found migrant workers living in inadequate conditions near the worksite and receiving little pay. Now, the International Trade Union estimates that no fewer than 4,000 Nepalese will have died by the completion of the Qatar World Cup construction effort. The poor Nepalean immigrants that work on these sites sign contracts that are mostly written in Arabic or English. They tend to ask few to no questions out of fear of losing the work opportunity. Perhaps the saddest part of this story is that the people working and dieing on these construction sites came to Qatar in hopes of finding a better life. FIFA claims to be talking with Qatar, here have been no signs that Qatar is changing its practices.



FIFA is the undisputed international face of football and controls the media rights and placement of the World Cup. Because of this, it holds enormous power and the placement of billions of dollars are under its control. Enlightened from the recently publicized human rights abuses, some have alleged that FIFA is self-serving and power hungry. These allegations are amplified by FIFA’s long history of questionable financial practices. The Qatar bribery debacle is only the most recent in a long streak of corruption controversies and financial mismanagement allegations directed at FIFA. Sepp Blatter, the 1998-2015 president of FIFA, features heavily in allegations of corruption. He was repeatedly accused of taking over the organization in an illegal manner and then manipulating it for the benefit of third party organizations. Four other prominent FIFA board members have been brought up in allegations of bribery over the past few years, one of which, Paraguay’s Nicolás Leoz, is said to have offered his vote in exchange for a British knighthood.

There are a slew of other complaints directed towards FIFA, most of which appear to have merit. Sep Blatter has been accused of sexist and homophobic behavor. He has publically stated that he does not think that gay or trans people should be allowed to play soccer at all and that women’s soccer would be more popular if the athlete’s shorts were made shorter and tighter, thus insulting a huge portion of his audience. Also, FIFA moved too slowly to accept technology and refused to allow cameras to be placed on the goal-lines. The organization held out on this issue for many years, until a goal, left uncounted in an England-Uekrainian game outraged the two countries. The organization is also renowned for hiring refs who make questionable calls. Instead of addressing the issue appropriately, FIFA instead decided to ban instant replays in its games, hoping no one would notice bad calls. Finally FIFA, since 2010 has annually presented the league players who exhibit the best overall performance throughout a year with a Ballon d’Or award. So far, this award has only been achieved by two players, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the faces of Adidas and Nike respectively.

As of 2020, Lionel Messi has won the award a record six times while playing for Barcelona, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who has won five times.


The business of FIFA’s international soccer can never be just about the game. It is about human rights, international relations, and the accountability of international organizations. As of 2016 Sepp Blatter was impeached and replaced by the Swiss-Italian Gianni Infantino. Infantino, elected by the FIFA Congress worked as the Secretary General of the International Center for Sports Studies (CIES) at the University of Neuchâtel. Infantino seems to be leading FIFA in a better direction, but a lot of work needs to be done in order to redeem this simultaneously loved and despised organization.



Recommended Readings for this Post



Jennings, Andrew. Foul!: the Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals. HarperSport, 2011. https://www.abebooks.com/Foul-Secret-World-FIFA-Bribes-Vote/30342919519/bd

Andrew Jennining is an award winning investigative reporter who spent four years investigating FIFA. His work resulted in the most extensively researched publication of the organization to date. It is worth going into this book with eyes open to the fact that Jenning went into his investigation with the predisposition that FIFA is corrupt.



28, Shady March, et al. “The Dark Side of FIFA: Selected Controversies and the Future of Accountability in the Organization.” Soccer Politics / The Politics of Football, 4 Mar. 2015, https://sites.duke.edu/wcwp/tournament-guides/world-cup-2014/fifa-institutional-politics/the-dark-side-of-fifa-controversies-and-the-future/

This is the best short article you can read to become aware of FIFA’s current issues. All of the information is accurate, concise, and most importantly all in one place. This article is full of great links as well.