By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Nov 9, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Faced with what their own top elected official has described as "the need for change and the urgent need for sweeping reforms," what world soccer's governing body really needs right now is another committee. At least that's the takeaway from FIFA president Sepp Blatter's decision to "put to life" the Strategic Committee, one that hasn't met in over two years. Hey, at least it's not the panel of learned celebrity fans and the occasional retired soccer player Blatter attempted to organize as the "Solutions Committee."
Though the Strategic Committee managed to miss the entirety of the time line that led to FIFA's current problems, it was designed to draw from the breadth of soccer knowledge. Some might say that right now that's the last thing FIFA needs, the advice of a committee that predates the problems but suffers from the same inclusiveness issue that's brought down parts of the Executive Committee. After all, there's a missing space for a Confederation president on the Strategic Committee roster along with another member currently facing an embezzlement investigation in his home country.
It's also another committee now reactivated in a complex conversation with even more committees, all trying to get FIFA to a more comfortable position. Perhaps one where the first assumption isn't corruption and press conferences don't turn into lectures on how the media is rude to question authority and mandates.
Yes, Blatter is still working the mandate point. In his view of events, the bulk of the electorate voting to reelect him for another term and telling him to fix the organization's problems is a mandate. That the only other candidate was facing an Ethics Committee suspension and withdrew his candidacy days before the election ends up being a detail. Blatter the reformer was set on an obvious path by that FIFA Congress on June 1st, and some things will have to change.
In his address earlier this week to the International Football Arena conference, Blatter was on message.
"FIFA has a responsibility to act according to the good governance principles of transparency and zero tolerance towards any wrongdoings," Blatter told the IFA members. We acknowledge that mistakes have been made in the past and that they need to be corrected. The strong mandate given to me by the FIFA Congress on the 1st of June goes precisely in this direction, as they have asked that good governance measures be implemented and that the adequate structures are strengthened and created to be able to tackle any wrongdoings."
To be fair to the work Blatter is attempting to do, he almost has no choice other than to be forward looking. That might tweak the media, but in real terms it's the only way to literally move forward. Again, that's the kind of thinking that sets most journalists on edge, a way to circumvent the history and write a new story. More often than not, that new account is flattering when most would prefer it to be an indictment of past events. It's an old scenario. Look at the fixes we're implementing now to avoid the old problems. That's where Blatter's June 1st becomes so important, it's the firewall between past and future.
"We have an agenda, we have a roadmap where we have to go," Blatter said to the IAB. "But it's not to say it's all bad. We have to be transparent and go through this procedure so that in the 2013 Congress or 2014 we can say FIFA is here, in a better position than it is today. Then I would like to show what has been done in the 36 years since I started to work for FIFA and where we are today, and that FIFA is this organisation that gives the world hope that there is a better future."
Even if it's still worth questioning the bureaucratic style of piling committees on top of committees in pursuit of the same outcome, what choice does Blatter really have? He's operating within a broken bureaocracy. The question has moved from the throw the bums out moment that was never likely to happen when many of the bums in question were still supported by wide swaths of the electorate to what comes next. In the big picture sense, it has to be about implementing change while trying to move on from a situation that's grown larger than FIFA.
That's the June 1st mandate, and it hasn't been business as usual. FIFA has taken steps no one should've expected. The release of the ISL lawsuit, continued suspensions for FIFA members found to have had ethical lapses, and finally accepting that they would have to spend a significant period of time talking about their own organizational problems.
FIFA would rather not, a theme that normally carries them through crisis moments. In FIFA's world, they answer to their own electorate and their sponsors. They're beyond domestic courts, their most financially powerful members, and in their minds the kind of journalism that isn't respectful. The result is the type of isolation that allowed FIFA's era of corruption to happen. Unfortunately, addressing those problems through committee might satisfy FIFA's own bureaucracy, but the real difficulty Blatter faces is satisfying everybody else.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
