By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 21, 2011) US Soccer Players -- It must be tough when the rest of the world decides to question an organization like FIFA. There's the expected lack of transparency from an organization that only really answers to a limited electorate. That's those 208 people who get a vote.
In practical terms, the FIFA club is even more exclusive. It's the 25 people that are part of the executive committee including the FIFA president and the general secretary. That subset of a subset is the only thing that matters in those practical terms, and it exists in a world that simply isn't business as usual.
Consider the kind of defense put up as former executive committee member Jack Warner threatens to out how FIFA really does business. You have officials talking about only accepting the expected gifts from junkets like a nice new watch.
What FIFA has done over the years is inadvertently create a new normal. For awhile, there wasn't enough public information for anybody to really care. Sure, there was the occasional magazine article, book, or European television segment alerting us to what might be going on at FIFA. In real terms? It was a subset of a subset of soccer fans who really cared.
That didn't change with the last FIFA presidential election. It changed when FIFA's executive committee didn't vote as expected by the rest of the world on who would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Outrage is a good word, and it's still impacting FIFA business.
So what's the response?
- The World Cup vote moves to the full FIFA congress, so there will be 203 votes the next time they decide on a World Cup host.
- The ethics committee will be strengthened.
- FIFA will establish a committee for corporate government and compliance. As Blatter presented it, this will be an organization that apparently includes a subset of everyone in the world. "Who will represent the public? We'll have to see."
That's the highlight version of what Blatter announced on Friday, and it went pretty much as expected. No truly sweeping changes. No restructuring of the executive committee. Instead, there's a commitment to 'good governance' that might prove difficult when it's the survivors of the summer ethics purge still making the decisions.
What FIFA has become is a very well funded committee infatuated with its own rules and procedures. Look, it happens. It takes significant leadership to push beyond the kind of in-house thinking that truly believes the procedures in place just need a bit of tweaking.
Of course, this is FIFA so there's always something else. In this case, it's stressing that FIFA's hands might be tied at international level because of those pesky Confederations. After all, it's the Confederations that choose the members of the executive committee. That's why there's no gender diversity. Blatter said during his press statements that he would like a woman on the executive committee, but what can he do?
Fair enough under FIFA's rules, but all that does in practice is shift the crux of multiple problems to six confederations that might not have very much in common.
UEFA is pushing a reform agenda to make sure their clubs are adopting and adapting to financial fair play. They're also trying to make sure the elite clubs don't go their own way. There's no other confederation in the world dealing with that problem. It's also UEFA and its clubs forcing the matchdays on the international calendar. UEFA problems are hardly the problems of the other Confederations, yet in real terms it's UEFA setting the important agenda and not in concert with the other confederations.
Where this leaves everyone else has been a long-term issue. It's one of divergent needs and goals that's supposed to be synthesized at the FIFA congress and executive committee levels.
Considering what that means in practice, how is FIFA's new wide-ranging committee on good governance that once again includes everybody inside and outside of world soccer supposed to accomplish anything of significance? After all, the most they'll be doing is advising the executive committee who will always have final say.
If it seems like all FIFA really did over the last few days is further complicate its own bureaucracy, you're not alone. This is a parliamentary response designed to keep a house in order. It's not a reformation. It's not a drastic change. As presented, at best it's simply a workaround. As Blatter's translator said in the press conference streamed live on the internet, it's an attempt to present "an image that's slightly better than the one we have currently."
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
