By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (May 26, 2011) US Soccer Players -- What we need to keep in mind is that we’re less than a week away from the FIFA presidential election. So why wouldn’t it make sense that now both presidential candidates get to spend their Sunday defending themselves in front of that organization’s ethics committee.
On 26 May 2011, FIFA Executive Committee member Mohamed bin Hammam has requested the FIFA Ethics Committee to open ethics proceedings against FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter on the basis that, in the report submitted by FIFA Executive Committee member Chuck Blazer earlier this week, FIFA Vice-President Jack A. Warner would have informed the FIFA President in advance about alleged cash payments to delegations attending a special meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) apparently organised jointly by Jack A. Warner and Mohamed bin Hammam on 10 and 11 May 2011 and that the FIFA President would have had no issue with these.
In other words, it’s no longer just Bin Hammam and CONCACAF president JAck Warner with some explaining to do. This would certainly provide a reason for Bin Hammam and Warner both insisting they did nothing wrong even as reports of solid evidence against them mounts. After all, if – as the FIFA statement says – Warner had ‘informed’ Blatter beforehand, this might end up amounting to nothing more than FIFA business as usual.
For anyone used to giving World soccer’s governing body the benefit of the doubt when it comes to acting in its own best interest, is any of this really surprising? Certainly the circumstances to be sure, but once we get some much needed clarification even that will probably make sense in FIFA’s own unique way.
This simply isn’t an organization that seems to care what outsiders think. Insiders aren’t in a position where it’s at all advantageous to talk to members of the media, so we end up with a closed shop. After all, why would anyone at a level of actual influence at FIFA or even at Confederation level want to risk that by talking about their business? What that leaves us with is a variety of assumptions, theories, and pushes for reform when it’s not altogether clear what’s being reformed.
Certainly, it would be nice to have a transparent organization where the decision-making is sensible. Instead od embracing the basic concept of a public right to know, if anything FIFA has set a course away from overt transparency in their dealings. It’s worth pointing out that the press conference following Sunday’s multiple ethics investigations will be streamed live on the organization’s official site. Yet that’s the end result of another closed meeting, something FIFA and the Confederations have made business as usual.
Organizations that are too tough to cover usually end up with outlets no longer spending the money or the resources to cover them. That’s the reality of limited budgets in the current era of journalism. For FIFA, that’s probably not seen as much of a problem, especially if you’ve seen how FIFA and its members respond to media inquiries that will lead in unflattering directions.
Yet FIFA remains the top of a pyramid that reaches all the way down to the lowest levels of organized soccer in every country on the planet. Their mandate is supposed to be more than simply turning the top of that pyramid into a multifaceted revenue source under their control and ultimately nobody else’s business. Even in the best situation devoid of competing ethics charges, that's not good enough. It’s a ‘come to them’ way of looking at the world.
So the world does just that, or at least the soccer-interested part. We’re all focused on Zurich, watching what’s turned into a soap opera.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
