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| Act now to clean out the stables, Fifa | Act now to clean out the stables, Fifa |
| (about 14 hours later) | |
| Sepp Blatter has been pulling rabbits out of hats for nearly two decades. When all has seemed lost he has outmanoeuvred opponents, deflected criticism, avoided investigation and, just last Friday, got himself re-elected as Fifa president for the fifth time. But he has saved the best trick for last and, when seemingly unassailable, resigned. | Sepp Blatter has been pulling rabbits out of hats for nearly two decades. When all has seemed lost he has outmanoeuvred opponents, deflected criticism, avoided investigation and, just last Friday, got himself re-elected as Fifa president for the fifth time. But he has saved the best trick for last and, when seemingly unassailable, resigned. |
| Perhaps he knows that the Swiss and US attorney general’s office investigations will eventually reach him. Perhaps he really is as weary and forlorn as he appeared at the lectern and the thought of battles to come no longer appeals. Perhaps we should take him at his word, that he knows that Fifa just cannot continue as it has been and that the prerequisite of any change is his departure. Either way we should salute the work and words of investigative journalists (take a bow, Andrew Jennings), Fifa whistleblowers, political activists and critics and judicial agencies that have forced him and the organisation to this point. | Perhaps he knows that the Swiss and US attorney general’s office investigations will eventually reach him. Perhaps he really is as weary and forlorn as he appeared at the lectern and the thought of battles to come no longer appeals. Perhaps we should take him at his word, that he knows that Fifa just cannot continue as it has been and that the prerequisite of any change is his departure. Either way we should salute the work and words of investigative journalists (take a bow, Andrew Jennings), Fifa whistleblowers, political activists and critics and judicial agencies that have forced him and the organisation to this point. |
| Speaking in the words of many of his fiercest critics, Blatter outlined the scale and the depth of Fifa’s problems, and admitted that nothing short of wholesale constitutional and structural change would be adequate to the task of reform. With an implicit dig at those I suspect he believes are responsible for his downfall, special measures will be taken to review the probity of members of the executive committee – a task previously outsourced to the ever unreliable regional confederations. | Speaking in the words of many of his fiercest critics, Blatter outlined the scale and the depth of Fifa’s problems, and admitted that nothing short of wholesale constitutional and structural change would be adequate to the task of reform. With an implicit dig at those I suspect he believes are responsible for his downfall, special measures will be taken to review the probity of members of the executive committee – a task previously outsourced to the ever unreliable regional confederations. |
| But this is small beer compared to the struggle that is to come. In around four months’ time, Fifa will hold an extraordinary congress at which the same 209 national football associations that elected Blatter last week will be asked to chose a successor, and five nominations are required for a candidate to stand. Jérôme Champagne, previously a senior Fifa official, and the only prospective candidate who looked as if he might really initiate some reform in Zurich, was unable to even get on the ballot paper last time. | |
| The king is heading for exile, many of his courtiers are in the tower, but the ancien regime remains intact | The king is heading for exile, many of his courtiers are in the tower, but the ancien regime remains intact |
| So let us be careful what we wish for. The king is heading for exile, many of his courtiers are in the tower or on the run, but the ancien regime remains intact. The world’s national football associations, many of whose senior executives are enmeshed in the widening web of corruption and bribery, and few of which are accountable to anyone or anything, remain the kingmakers. We would be wise not to expect too much of them. If Prince Ali, decent, polite man that he is, is the best figurehead that reformers within the football world can come up with then this glorious regicide is unlikely to be followed by real change. | So let us be careful what we wish for. The king is heading for exile, many of his courtiers are in the tower or on the run, but the ancien regime remains intact. The world’s national football associations, many of whose senior executives are enmeshed in the widening web of corruption and bribery, and few of which are accountable to anyone or anything, remain the kingmakers. We would be wise not to expect too much of them. If Prince Ali, decent, polite man that he is, is the best figurehead that reformers within the football world can come up with then this glorious regicide is unlikely to be followed by real change. |
| One thing that the more perceptive candidates and their supporters might like to consider is this: neither they nor Fifa own football. They hold it in trust for the rest of the world. More significantly, the meanings and values that coalesce around the game are not produced by them, by football associations nor even by the great clubs and their superstars. Football matters because people have chosen to invest it with meaning by playing, organising and following it. The crowds that populate the stadiums of this planet are not mere consumers but chorus, commentator and an essential component of the spectacle and ritual that makes it the global game. | One thing that the more perceptive candidates and their supporters might like to consider is this: neither they nor Fifa own football. They hold it in trust for the rest of the world. More significantly, the meanings and values that coalesce around the game are not produced by them, by football associations nor even by the great clubs and their superstars. Football matters because people have chosen to invest it with meaning by playing, organising and following it. The crowds that populate the stadiums of this planet are not mere consumers but chorus, commentator and an essential component of the spectacle and ritual that makes it the global game. |
| But we – grassroots players, long-suffering fans, amateur officials and coaches – are most certainly not consulted or represented by our football associations anywhere in the world. Nor have we any reason to think that they are capable of making enlightened decisions that favour the common good over private, commercial and frankly venal interests. | |
| Related: Get rid of Blatter – but not Fifa | David Goldblatt | Related: Get rid of Blatter – but not Fifa | David Goldblatt |
| Fifa and its members have many pressing tasks ahead. In the short term they must clean out the stables, almost certainly reconsider the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and find some plausible candidates who can not only win the confidence of football associations but the wider football and political community. The entire process should begin with a recognition that the sovereignty of Fifa and its football associations – the underpinnings of rightful rule – do not start at the top but at the bottom, with the popular will, popular consent and popular legitimacy. | Fifa and its members have many pressing tasks ahead. In the short term they must clean out the stables, almost certainly reconsider the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and find some plausible candidates who can not only win the confidence of football associations but the wider football and political community. The entire process should begin with a recognition that the sovereignty of Fifa and its football associations – the underpinnings of rightful rule – do not start at the top but at the bottom, with the popular will, popular consent and popular legitimacy. |
| This is not territory that the world’s football administrators, our own included, have ever paid much heed to. The time to do so is now. Fifa should make this kind of democratic thinking the basis of reform. It must reach out to constituencies, voices and opinions beyond the football insiders. It should conduct a real election campaign where its ideas are publicly scrutinised and ruthlessly tested on global television. The king has fled; let us not arrange another coronation but begin the process of building a republic. | This is not territory that the world’s football administrators, our own included, have ever paid much heed to. The time to do so is now. Fifa should make this kind of democratic thinking the basis of reform. It must reach out to constituencies, voices and opinions beyond the football insiders. It should conduct a real election campaign where its ideas are publicly scrutinised and ruthlessly tested on global television. The king has fled; let us not arrange another coronation but begin the process of building a republic. |
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