By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (May 26, 2011) US Soccer Players -- It should be a tough weekend for FIFA. With more media intensity than they should’ve expected directed towards next week’s Congress and the FIFA presidential elections, they now have an Ethics Committee meeting as the opening act.
Depending on the version of the story, either corruption is rampant among senior officials on the Executive Committee including a presidential candidate, or this is an attempt at election intimidation. Either way, it’s the other candidate brought up on ethics charges days before the actual election.
How this plays out probably won’t tell us any more about the inner workings of FIFA than we already know. This is an organization normally concerned with its own administrative staff. A few times a year, that’s extended to include members of the Executive Committee. In an election cycle, it’s the 208 vote holders. Even then, the bulk of those votes are normally available in Confederation-sized blocks. None of this suggests an open and transparent system. It also suggests that what may or may not have happened with the Caribbean voting block was at all surprising.
Looking at the current situation from the outside, and it’s ridiculous that an organization seems set on punishing or vindicating a candidate on Sunday before holding an election on Wednesday. From FIFA’s standpoint, this apparently isn’t seen as a problem.
Where this leaves the organization a week from now isn’t clear. Sitting president Sepp Blatter has warned us of a ‘black hole’ in his absence. Presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam seems set on a future that means more power in the hands of the Executive Committee.
As politicians do, both are overplaying the current situation and what the future holds. Both are also using terms publicly without seeming to have much interest in filling them with meaning. One of those is transparency, while both operate in the classic FIFA fashion. Only the direct electorate matters, not its members and certainly not the general public.
FIFA could’ve saved itself a lot of trouble in previous election cycles by being more open to a media presence. Instead, they go about their business as if there is something to hide. Whether or not that’s the case, it wins them few friends and scant support from the people that buy tickets to FIFA events and push the price of rights packages ever higher. That’s the rest of us, the ones that don’t get a vote.
I don’t believe there’s a countdown clock on how much longer FIFA can get away with acting like this. There’s a very real issue with the primary actors ageing out of being able to hold any influence, but that’s happened before. A transition will occur and it will likely be full of angry words directed at the internal processes of the organization.
We’ve seen FIFA shrug off situations that should’ve led to a revamp of how they do business. We’ll likely see that again. The problem with a multi-national organization setup to do one thing – govern soccer around the world – is exactly what stops alternatives from rising. It’s a difficult job in the best of situations. FIFA’s commitment to equality among countries that have very little in common even on the playing field is laudable. It’s also frustrating for the countries that believe they’ve earned greater say and influence. That’s probably been the case to one degree or another from the beginning.
Sunday’s Ethics Committee meeting now takes the lead role in what won’t be a fair election. That became impossible when the decision was made by the current administration to bring charges against the only other presidential candidate. Yet it’s that outrage that has the only countdown clock worth our attention. The outrage simply won’t last. It never does. FIFA will do what it wants, even if that means reshuffling roles and changing out a few actors. It’s how this works.
How To Abandon A Game
In Monday’s Daily, we discussed Major League Soccer’s policy of waiting out lightning delays no matter how long players ended up sitting in the locker room. The Nutralite Championship agrees to disagree with the MLS policy, opting to abandon last night’s game between Toronto and Vancouver at BMO Field due to lightning and rescheduling it for the decidedly un-fan friendly time of 11am on Thursday morning.
Almost immediately, there was criticism of the decision. Vancouver was up a goal and a replay would erase that lead. Canadian Soccer Association general secretary Peter Montopoli had the correct response.
“The ruling in this competition is that if the match is abandoned it’s played the following day. That’s the regulation for this competition.”
Fortunately for those actually wanting to see it in person, the weather did the fans another favor. The quick replay has now been pushed back to July 2nd after field conditions hadn’t improved.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
