Well, there we have it, there is no crisis in FIFA! I bet old Sir Stanley Rous is turning in his grave. Just how did we allow the likes of Sepp Blatter to hijack football? I am astounded that a major figure in world football blatantly get away with murder.
Because of greed, Mr Peabody.
People have been greedy since the snake visited Adam and Eve
Greed for power Finn. The men in suits are gradually killing our game, at all levels.
The man is a law to himself,no one is brave enough to stand up to him,it's an absolute disgrace,FIFA= farce and should not be running football.
Apparently the Aussie Fa,not the richest league in the world spent 20 mill on their bid after they were told they were in with a good shout,we spent much more also after votes were promised that never materalised.
I wish our FA had the bottle to tell them to get stuffed I am sure other football associations would follow.
Quote from: Peabody on May 30, 2011, 06:34:01 PM
Greed for power Finn. The men in suits are gradually killing our game, at all levels.
Agree. But the thick brown envelopes is a good vehicle to trigger it. I am embarrassed and quite frankly disgusted with how off the kilter it has all become.
And the sad thing is I am pretty sure if someone looked closely under the hood at the FA they would find quite a few skeletons in those cupboards as well but that is just my personal opinion.
Those money should end up at the kids and coaches doing it on their spare time, not Sir Trevor Brooking or his mates pockets or the overpaid players. The reason England is sh1t and will not win a world cup for at least another decade is exactly that.
The man has too much power and loving it. Absolute farce.
Problem is we can't withdraw from FIFA, or we would have nobody to play...
Quote from: Mo on May 30, 2011, 06:35:06 PMI wish our FA had the bottle to tell them to get stuffed I am sure other football associations would follow.
100% agree, they should contact the top ten-twenty associations and look to pull out unless Sepp steps down, or even put our own man to step up and at least challenge for election.
I do think if england pulled out and said they were not going to take part in the next WC qualifying games and said the reason was The joke FIFA are, others may follow.
BUT as we all know the FA is so badly run anyway no one would have the guts to put this forward because in the end its all about MONEY, feck the fans.
The English FA is not highly regarded by world football, they would love it if we withdrew. No, that is not the answer, because we need world football more than they need us.
The corruption problem isn't specifically at FIFA. It's endemic in too many of the national FAs that comprise FIFAs membership. The last thing they want is to clean up FIFA.
There's too big a money trough in football and plenty of room for all the snouts.
I think if a few sponsors decided to ask some questions and pull money things will deffo change.
FIFA, like all football authorities, know they can get away with what they want. They know, no matter what, the fans will still pay a bucket load to watch football.Think about it, finals in Qatar, you are seriously kidding! :tom: My country, Scotland could have had a shot at winning back in the 70s if they had played at home. Seriously, they went undefeated in qualifiers for about 22 years at home. They had no chance, too SMALL, not enough grounds etc. I think Scotand is a little bigger than Qatar.
Didn't see too many empty seats at Wembley, despite the cost, to watch an English team get humiliated.
Keep pushing the price up, they will still come. Personally, I have no interest in international football any more. Watched about 5 games in the last wc, all in the knock out stage.
I wouldn't watch Capello's England if they were playing in the local park.
Fulham, now that is a different story.
As stated above, there's an absence of incentive to bring about any change, and an impotence to effect it, with the current FIFA system. However, MJG made a good point: Coca-Cola and Adidas questioning (finally) the legitimacy of FIFA will be the only impetus to change...possibly if they threaten to pull sponsorships. When all the pigs can't fit at a smaller trough we may see a different system...maybe. 099.gif
Mr. Peabody, Blatter reminds me of Avery Brundage -- who was a similar sort of dictator with the IOC.
One thing's for sure: the next head of FIFA won't be as untouchable. Even they have to be embarassed at all this.
I was embrassed today watching that farce on SSN .The game i love being gragged into the gutter.Sepp you asked for respect a number of times during your speech on how your not going to do any thing. So with due respect resign sir .
If we pulled out of FIFA,we would need the Germans(might come) the Yanks,the Aussies,the Belgians ( they might be little but they never run away from a scrap) maybe Holland and a couple more.FIFA would then be powerless and we could bin the boad and start again,it needs a rebuild from the ground up but it will never happen,when tiny countries (Luxembourg)have the same voting rights as Germany,the USA ect-too much power to give up.
Quote from: MJG on May 30, 2011, 07:23:53 PM
I think if a few sponsors decided to ask some questions and pull money things will deffo change.
Was just hearing on the radio that CocaCola and Addidas, two of FIFAs biggest sponsors, have issued statements expressing concern about all the allegations.
Quote from: Burt on May 31, 2011, 07:38:53 AM
Quote from: MJG on May 30, 2011, 07:23:53 PM
I think if a few sponsors decided to ask some questions and pull money things will deffo change.
Was just hearing on the radio that CocaCola and Addidas, two of FIFAs biggest sponsors, have issued statements expressing concern about all the allegations.
that is great news,the only thing these people respect is money 092.gif
I've often wondered what's in it for sponsors. For an unknown company the name recognition is invaluable but what more do the likes of Coca Cola etc need.
I'd love to follow the money trail of these big sponsorship deals and see where the money ends up. Of course if corruption allegations stick to FIFA then sponsors will go elsewhere but not necessarily to more honest sports.
On a slight diversion Qatar can't have bought the finals from corrupt FIFA because what they actually needed was the votes of independent FAs who had the votes - not FIFA.
If I offer to bribe you I'm corrupt but if you take the bribe so are you and I'd be stupid to try to bribe people I know to be honest.
The corruption is in the whole football pyramid.
I really recommend "Pitch invasion: adidas and the making of modern sport" by Barbara Smit.
The blurb:
Unlacing the story of how sport became so full of money. Today, sport is big business, and Adidas and Puma are two of the biggest global brands, paying stars, clubs and competitions to wear their label, dominating everywhere from football pitches to magazine pages. This is the incredible story of how the rivalry between two brothers turned sport into an industry. It all began in the 1920s, when Adi and Rudi Dassler started a shoe business in a small German town. It was an instant success, but soon personal rivalries began to pull the two brothers apart, and by the end of the Second World War it was outright warfare. Forced to split the company between them, Adi and Rudi not only split their family and their hometown, but went on to divide retailers, sportsmen and countries for the next five decades with their rival brands: Adidas and Puma. Charting the story of how these businesses revolutionized the world of sport - exploiting advertising, influencing fashions and following the money at every turn - "Pitch Invasion" also tells the tales of some of the greatest sportsmen of all time, revealing the Pele pact, Boris Becker's unfortunate contribution to the demise of Puma, and just how Adidas helped Mohammed Ali win his biggest fight. Reaching right up to today's world of multibillion-dollar corporations, looking at how the arrival of Nike affected the pitch and the significance of Adidas's recent takeover of Reebok, this is an incredible sporting drama of competition, greed, bribery, passion and shoes.
Andrew Jennings' "Foul!" is also good, if a bit muddled. From David Goldblatt's review:
Jennings's account of Warner's football and business careers is one of innumerable tales of flagrant and disgraceful gravy-training. In Warner's case, this peaked in spring 2006 when it was revealed that his family travel agency was selling World Cup ticket packages out of the football association's allocation. Asked to explain, Warner announced that he had resigned from the board of the travel agency, as had his wife. Thus a conflict of interest, if there had every been one, no longer pertained.
This is conduct so laughable that it would not survive a moment's scrutiny in the most modestly democratic public sphere. That it can continue is testament to the brazen indifference of an elite that faces no opposition and little scrutiny. The sooner they do, the sooner they can be swept away.
...Blatter's response made him look even more shifty than before. There was no apology for letting the organisation that he runs become synonymous with corruption at all levels, there was no talk of doing the honourable thing and resign - not even a suggestion that the presidential re-election should be delayed pending the outcome of the allegations - after all, he himself was cleared of any dodgy dealings by his own ethics committee.
How did we let our game be kidnapped, greed, at all levels? by letting the sport be sky-jacked...
Crisis ? What's a crisis? Sepp Blatter does have a point in a strange sort of way. No, wait a minute, listen....
Take the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, for example. FIFA made close to 1.2M$ on this event (figures taken from the official FIFA 2010 finance report). South Africa is still struggling to pay the 3.5 billion dollars it cost them to host the event (BBC report : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8718696.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8718696.stm))
So Blatter is basically saying: "We're doing all right getting money from all different sources and spending it as we see fit. To hell with everyone else involved in football, from the roots up. We'll pay lip service to it, of course. Crisis? What's a crisis?"
Our game was taken from us years ago. It is the same with Government. When it became acceptable to lie and cheat, some fans said "Oh well, we would do the same in their shoes". Warnings were there, it was an open secret. But we were all too busy to care enough. We alow wars to start in our name, people to call us brother, while stabbing us in the back and the crimminal to run the game of football. All that will happen is the cheats will move on to be replaced by other cheats.
We allow it to happen. Well I don't because I have just mentioned it 079.gif but the rest of society does.
Quote from: Rambling_Syd_Rumpo on May 31, 2011, 07:26:27 AM
If we pulled out of FIFA,we would need the Germans(might come) the Yanks,the Aussies,the Belgians ( they might be little but they never run away from a scrap) maybe Holland and a couple more.FIFA would then be powerless and we could bin the boad and start again,it needs a rebuild from the ground up but it will never happen,when tiny countries (Luxembourg)have the same voting rights as Germany,the USA ect-too much power to give up.
If England, Spain, Germany and Italy pulled out the rest would follow. Yesterday an interview with former FA chief, Mark Palios, brought up a couple of eye openers. He said that there are 208 member associations in FIFA and that a member the size of the Faroe Islands or San Marino (bloody miniature) have the same voting rights as the FA (fecking huge). The smaller members don't seem to give a flying toss who is in charge of the FA as they're basically glorified pub sides, so they just keep voting for Blatter and change will never happen.
Twisted and evil.
Blatter wouldn't have lasted long in my local pub. 096.gig
Quote from: The Equalizer on May 31, 2011, 09:30:47 AM
Quote from: Rambling_Syd_Rumpo on May 31, 2011, 07:26:27 AM
If we pulled out of FIFA,we would need the Germans(might come) the Yanks,the Aussies,the Belgians ( they might be little but they never run away from a scrap) maybe Holland and a couple more.FIFA would then be powerless and we could bin the boad and start again,it needs a rebuild from the ground up but it will never happen,when tiny countries (Luxembourg)have the same voting rights as Germany,the USA ect-too much power to give up.
If England, Spain, Germany and Italy pulled out the rest would follow. Yesterday an interview with former FA chief, Mark Palios, brought up a couple of eye openers. He said that there are 208 member associations in FIFA and that a member the size of the Faroe Islands or San Marino (bloody miniature) have the same voting rights as the FA (fecking huge). The smaller members don't seem to give a flying toss who is in charge of the FA as they're basically glorified pub sides, so they just keep voting for Blatter and change will never happen.
Twisted and evil.
That's democracy :022:
The problem is not so much the votes from small countries, but the fact that the functioning of FIFA lacks any transparency. I don't think the public should know all the discussions regarding the sponsoring of world cups (how much a company pays, for what exactly) but all other decisions should be made in the open. The idea that the vote for a world cup should be closed is ridiculous. If you have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid to raise your hand or press a button with the country/countries you are honestly convinced deserve it best? Surely the representative is mandated by his national federation and works on the basis of instructions. The same counts for all minor decisions, such as allocation of funding to specific programs and such... That would make a "politique politicienne" figure as Blatter completely unacceptable and would lead to, as always, a Belgian taking over :011:
Quote from: sipwell on May 31, 2011, 09:54:58 AM
Quote from: The Equalizer on May 31, 2011, 09:30:47 AM
Quote from: Rambling_Syd_Rumpo on May 31, 2011, 07:26:27 AM
If we pulled out of FIFA,we would need the Germans(might come) the Yanks,the Aussies,the Belgians ( they might be little but they never run away from a scrap) maybe Holland and a couple more.FIFA would then be powerless and we could bin the boad and start again,it needs a rebuild from the ground up but it will never happen,when tiny countries (Luxembourg)have the same voting rights as Germany,the USA ect-too much power to give up.
If England, Spain, Germany and Italy pulled out the rest would follow. Yesterday an interview with former FA chief, Mark Palios, brought up a couple of eye openers. He said that there are 208 member associations in FIFA and that a member the size of the Faroe Islands or San Marino (bloody miniature) have the same voting rights as the FA (fecking huge). The smaller members don't seem to give a flying toss who is in charge of the FA as they're basically glorified pub sides, so they just keep voting for Blatter and change will never happen.
Twisted and evil.
That's democracy :022:
The problem is not so much the votes from small countries, but the fact that the functioning of FIFA lacks any transparency. I don't think the public should know all the discussions regarding the sponsoring of world cups (how much a company pays, for what exactly) but all other decisions should be made in the open. The idea that the vote for a world cup should be closed is ridiculous. If you have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid to raise your hand or press a button with the country/countries you are honestly convinced deserve it best? Surely the representative is mandated by his national federation and works on the basis of instructions. The same counts for all minor decisions, such as allocation of funding to specific programs and such... That would make a "politique politicienne" figure as Blatter completely unacceptable and would lead to, as always, a Belgian taking over :011:
How is that democracy? Constituencies should be of the same 'size'.
The Faroe Islands FA (just ten teams, 50th in the UEFA coefficient) has the same voting rights as everyone else - it's a rotten borough.
Another problem is that if Blatter were to resign, who would take his place. One name I have heard mentioned is Chuck Blazer, the US representative and I really do not have a scoobey doo about him. Do any of our Americans know anything about him?
Blazer has been near enough to Jack Warner for years for there to be some smell attached to him too. It's hard to judge all this - has he, for instance, merely been keeping his head down because doing so and maintaining the status quo is best for American football? - but the fact that almost everyone on the committee has kept quiet for so long in the interests of preserving their perks is not great.
The thing that irks me most is how someone like Warner can get so powerful. As head of the Trinidadian FA there's no way he should have such influence, but that's how things have got. The executive committee seems to be put together from people who - with all due respect (What a horrible phrase) are not from football's top countries. For years they've taken the handouts, the expense allowances, and kept their heads down, but it has to stop. I think the IOC eventually opened up the committee to one member/one vote and introduced maximum terms on the committee, and the corruption stopped immediately.
Blazer wouldn't be a consideration for leadership I don't think. You'd need someone who is seen as above the hurly burly of the current regime and all its trappings.
Franz Beckenbauer has taken a step back to spend more time with his family, but as an independently wealthy former superstar would not be tainted with the greediness of the current climbing wannabies.
Michel Platini is not quite so pure but would have the same aura and more drive.
Someone like Lennart Johannsson (as a guess) was chief of UEFA and was held in fairly high esteem there. I believe he wanted a run at Blatter but was maneuvered out of the way (details escape me).
I vote Ron Atkinson for FIFA president.
The FA are fantastic - remember the whole thing about the Panorama investigation being classed as 'unpatriotic'.... if anything, this is the only thing that allows the UK to save some face.
The thing with FIFA is that it has very little to do with football, it is all politics. And as soon as politics is involved, everything gets messy.
I don't know what the answer to the current problems are, but it has to start with a complete clearout of the current people involved at the highest level.
They should also move FIFA from Switzerland which did not have bribery laws until a few years ago and who have terrible regulatory powers.
Which is exactly why FIFA has its HQ in Switzerland
One thing not mentioned is that in large parts of the FIFA globe back handers and bribes are accepted business practice and it is open, other parts not so open but still goes on under the counter, the IOC was as FIFA for years but hopefully now has cleaned it's act up.
Quote from: ImperialWhite on May 31, 2011, 10:02:15 AM
How is that democracy? Constituencies should be of the same 'size'.
The Faroe Islands FA (just ten teams, 50th in the UEFA coefficient) has the same voting rights as everyone else - it's a rotten borough.
Don't all states in the American Senates have 2 votes, regardless of size and population? I think the current system is momentarily sub-optimal but a representation based on the number of football clubs/population/number of listed players would be sub-optimal too. It would distort the balance as big countries (like Brazil or England) would become all-dominant.
the problem isn't the fact all 208 countries (or whatever the number is) has 1 single vote. They have no power anyway. The FIFA Congress only elect officials and get to go on a jolly or two all expenses paid every year.
The problem is the organization of the Executive Committee which really decides everything and is a list that includes some very dodgy nations that has a less than stellar record on the topic of corruption in general. Here is a list of the lot, including the "provisionally" suspended ones directly from the FIFA website: http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/federation/bodies/exco.html (http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/federation/bodies/exco.html)
Confirms what I just posted Finn, where you have a "bung culture" they will say " what have we done wrong ?" the problem here in the UK is we judge every nation on our standards rightly or wrongly.
Nothing short of what happened to the IOC will be good enough to get rid of the problems within FIFA.
The IOC kicked out a load of corrupt delegates, and was then re-constituted.
It's still not a perfect organisation, by any stretch. And I guess that when it comes to arranging a global event like the Olympics, World Cup, etc. there will always be politics surrounding the process. But at least the IOC realised that there was a perception problem, and took large steps to combat these.
Blatter just buries his head in the sands. He just doesn't get it. Even if there is not as much corruption as is being alleged, perception is as strong as reality and that needs acknowledging and dealing with.
So to the Congress that is gathering - a big
096.gig
to you all.
I love Valcke's saying Qatar "bought" WC 2022 through their financial muscle, not by bribes. Is that like Whoopi Goldberg saying Roman Polanski didn't commit (http://jezebel.com/5369395/whoopi-on-roman-polanski-it-wasnt-rape+rape) "rape-rape"?
And also, MbH getting suspended for clearly bribing (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/924662/pictorial-evidence-of-fifa-'bribe-money'-emerges?cc=5901) CFU officials, but no further inquiries into the WC2022 bid process will be made. It's like a Prosecutor going after a drug dealer solely for possessing drugs, but refusing to investigate his $60k Lexus with illegal plates, or the unlicensed hand gun on him, or his involvement with other dealers...
