Bridgeman
Alfie Biggs
Joined: May 2014
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Post by Bridgeman on Oct 15, 2015 19:38:25 GMT
So with those two corrupt individuals suspended who is actually running FIFA and UEFA, their corrupt deputies ?
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brizzle
Lindsay Parsons
No Buy . . . No Sell!
Joined: May 2014
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Post by brizzle on Oct 16, 2015 12:15:55 GMT
So with those two corrupt individuals suspended who is actually running FIFA and UEFA, their corrupt deputies ? From CNN . . . Well, at least he's a reformed sinner nowadays.
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irishrover
Global Moderator
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Post by irishrover on Oct 16, 2015 14:03:00 GMT
So with those two corrupt individuals suspended who is actually running FIFA and UEFA, their corrupt deputies ? From CNN . . . Well, at least he's a reformed sinner nowadays. Apparently they had to check that he was still alive - no one had heard from him for ages and he is critically ill.
There may be some hope for a new FIFA but it's pretty unlikely that there will be much agreement on what that should look like. People talk about the corruption but what has allowed the corruption to flourish is that there is a huge schism in World football between the interests of the major football nations and the interests of the developing football nations - both in terms of share of the money and future direction of the game. Personally I fear a World game that is run by the FA's of the major nations because that would be utterly in hoc to the interests of the top leagues and it would contribute to the further decline of international football and further serve of the interests of top clubs to the disadvantage of football as a competitive sport. Like it or not that is the political vacuum that Blatter was able to exploit - fear of a game that is dominated by big nations of Europe and South America to the exclusion of other interests. People sometimes seem to think that corruption is integral to the politics of football but it's just as much the other way round; that the politics of football is integral to the corruption which means that you can get rid of the organisation, the people and set up better processes but without acknowledging that the root cause of football's problems are largely political rather than the result of a few unethical rotten applies at the top then all you're doing is creating the environment for history to repeat itself in a slightly different way somewhere down the line.
Football in general has too long avoided the big questions; club v country (the decline in the marketability of the international game in Europe while it remains of critical importance in Africa and South America), the wild west that is global youth player development (which can be extremely nasty and exploitative as I've seen 1st hand in Africa), the distribution of resources between countries (there's a lot of discussion about trickle down wealth from the Prem to the grassroots in England but when most of the players in the Prem are actually from overseas what slice of the pie do they deserve? ie. grassroots football in Africa/Asia/Eastern Europe don't normally see a penny from their talented young players who get scooped up at an early age and swallowed by the European Club system), inequities in media rights across countries and continents and differing priorities of major national associations and sponsors. All this is tied up in the really massive question which is - who should run World football and what mandate do they need to have?
Blatter was able to be successful for a very long time because like a lot of effective political administrators he was able to skillfully push the buttons on these issues when he needed to in order to gain election and then push the issues themselves under the carpet between election periods. This could be justified on the basis that football continued to expand massively on his watch. I'm not sure the next people will have that luxury. It's becoming increasingly clear that everyone in football knew that FIFA was as bent as hell but turned a blind eye on the basis of 'if it ain't broke' and that includes quite a lot of the people that are leading the charge against Blatter. Greg Dyke needs to show far more humility because the English FA are just as complicit in this as everyone else - we went to Qatar to play a game, we went to Trinidad to butter up Jack Warner, we played the 'Peace Game' in Geneva, we even had high profile people in the game (players, administrators, pundits) taking a pot shot at the investigate parts of the British press for being 'negative' and ruining our chances of hosting a World Cup by questioning FIFA's ethics. We knew exactly what the FIFA game was about and we played it; we just played it badly and surrendered any moral authority in doing so. The real reason FIFA is in a mess is the same reason a lot of Global Sports Organisations have got themselves in a mess - they have not updated their governance procedures to take into account that most sports are now expanding global businesses rather than parochial games and therefore everyone who has a financial or sporting interest in the sport expects a say in the running of the game which needs to be balanced by strong, fair and transparent decision making and legal processes. The days when blazers at Lords, Lancaster Gate and Twickenham ruled from on high and everyone else just had to lump their decisions are long gone but the governance structures and amateur administrational culture of that era remains embedded in these organisations and that's where there's a huge capacity for corruption given the staggering sums of money now involved at the highest level of global sport. The boring administrational rules really matter otherwise it just attracts/creates people like Blatter and his cronies like wasps to a jam jar. But in order to get that right you need some agreement over the basic purpose and function and I don't think football ultimately has that.
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brizzle
Lindsay Parsons
No Buy . . . No Sell!
Joined: May 2014
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Post by brizzle on Oct 16, 2015 14:14:59 GMT
From CNN . . . Well, at least he's a reformed sinner nowadays. Apparently they had to check that he was still alive - no one had heard from him for ages and he is critically ill.
There may be some hope for a new FIFA but it's pretty unlikely that there will be much agreement on what that should look like. People talk about the corruption but what has allowed the corruption to flourish is that there is a huge schism in World football between the interests of the major football nations and the interests of the developing football nations - both in terms of share of the money and future direction of the game. Personally I fear a World game that is run by the FA's of the major nations because that would be utterly in hoc to the interests of the top leagues and it would contribute to the further decline of international football. Like it or not that is the political vacuum that Blatter was able to exploit - fear of a game that is dominated by big nations of Europe and South America to the exclusion of other interests.
That really did make me chuckle, not the fact that he's critically ill mind you. And as for the rest of the post . . .
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brizzle
Lindsay Parsons
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Joined: May 2014
Posts: 4,293
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Post by brizzle on Oct 16, 2015 14:29:04 GMT
From BBC Sport . . .
Like rats from the proverbial sinking ship, and about time too.
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