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Call to arms: players must lead charge to rub out FIFA graft
Call to arms: players must lead charge to rub out FIFA graft
By Craig Foster May 5, 2013, 3 a.m.
Another month passes, and the moral vacuum of football motors on. There has to be a better future for the world game than the sorry way in which the global governing body, FIFA, is managed, surely?
I believe the time has come for the world's professional players, and their representative union, FIFPro, to take a leading role to enforce the sweeping changes needed.
Cast your mind back a couple of years to when the outrage around the world about the underhand dealings, endemic corruption, vote buying and sheer arrogance of the secret society that is FIFA was at a crescendo. Prominent journalists pushed for more transparency, government ministers - in Britain particularly - called for systemic reform in the structure and governance in Zurich, and commercial partners started to apply pressure for change.
It seemed the time had finally come for football to clean its house and move into the 21st century with a renewed focus on ethics and the basic values of the game.
Not quite. Long-term observers were only too aware that any support on the FIFA executive for change was a public relations exercise designed to buy time until the issue had waned. Sadly, this is how football works today - a cabal of high-ranking and very long-standing officials feeding at the FIFA trough over decades are intent on ensuring the status quo.
The past two years, alone, tell an extraordinarily shabby tale. We have seen former AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam banned for life; FIFA's honorary president Joao Havelange forced to resign in disgrace having been found guilty of taking bribes along with Ricardo Teixeira; and former head of CONCACAF Jack Warner allowed to resign to keep his FIFA pension despite being implicated in vote rigging during the last FIFA election.
More recently, an ethics committee of CONCACAF has accused Warner along with another longstanding official, Chuck Blazer, of fraud and embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars. And now the head of South American football for a ridiculous 27 years, 84-year-old Nicolas Leoz, has resigned on ''health and personal grounds'' amid allegations of his role in the ISL bribes scandal.
What's worse, the game has fallen so far morally and ethically that no scandal is too great and no allegation too surprising to shake the core of the game to act. Everyone sits and waits for others to put themselves at risk to openly criticise, or in hope that external forces such as governments or the commercial sector will take the lead, when the game itself must hold global leadership to account.
Australia has not emerged unscathed, with proof uncovered of a $462,000 payment made by Football Federation Australia to to CONCACAF to upgrade a stadium in Macoya in Trinidad and Tobago as part of its failed World Cup bid. It was deposited into an account used by Warner and which went missing entirely, deemed ''misappropriated''. The FFA says the money was paid to demonstrate its credentials in the area of international development.
Assuming the FFA acted in good faith, the fact that these funds came from an internal budget and not taxpayers is irrelevant. This was our game's money, paid by all of us parents in registration fees, and we should be demanding to know what occurred and seeking recovery.
The fact World Cup bidders are required to grease the wheels of support through such payments shows the game's skewed moral radar. Only last week, Alexandra Wrage, a key member of the independent governance committee advising FIFA on reforms, resigned because their recommendations were being rejected. Two of the more obvious were the appointment of independent, non-executive directors to the FIFA executive, and independent vetting of applicants for high-ranking posts. Quite simply, such vetting would remove most of the organisation running the game.
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Self-administered reform at FIFA was always going to be a farce. The organisation is underpinned by mutually beneficial relationships, self-interest and lack of transparency.
The world's professional players have a representative body with over 50,000 members. They are the heart of the game who from time to time have taken strong stands on issues affecting their rights. But now they need to protect the rights of the game itself by demanding the global governing body accepts independent review by an international committee of players, governments and sports governance experts.
All professional players, whether current or former, have a greater responsibility to the game that has given us so much. The time has come to discharge that responsibility.
Craig Foster is a life member and former chief executive of Professional Footballers Australia.
By Craig Foster May 5, 2013, 3 a.m.
Another month passes, and the moral vacuum of football motors on. There has to be a better future for the world game than the sorry way in which the global governing body, FIFA, is managed, surely?
I believe the time has come for the world's professional players, and their representative union, FIFPro, to take a leading role to enforce the sweeping changes needed.
Cast your mind back a couple of years to when the outrage around the world about the underhand dealings, endemic corruption, vote buying and sheer arrogance of the secret society that is FIFA was at a crescendo. Prominent journalists pushed for more transparency, government ministers - in Britain particularly - called for systemic reform in the structure and governance in Zurich, and commercial partners started to apply pressure for change.
It seemed the time had finally come for football to clean its house and move into the 21st century with a renewed focus on ethics and the basic values of the game.
Not quite. Long-term observers were only too aware that any support on the FIFA executive for change was a public relations exercise designed to buy time until the issue had waned. Sadly, this is how football works today - a cabal of high-ranking and very long-standing officials feeding at the FIFA trough over decades are intent on ensuring the status quo.
The past two years, alone, tell an extraordinarily shabby tale. We have seen former AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam banned for life; FIFA's honorary president Joao Havelange forced to resign in disgrace having been found guilty of taking bribes along with Ricardo Teixeira; and former head of CONCACAF Jack Warner allowed to resign to keep his FIFA pension despite being implicated in vote rigging during the last FIFA election.
More recently, an ethics committee of CONCACAF has accused Warner along with another longstanding official, Chuck Blazer, of fraud and embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars. And now the head of South American football for a ridiculous 27 years, 84-year-old Nicolas Leoz, has resigned on ''health and personal grounds'' amid allegations of his role in the ISL bribes scandal.
What's worse, the game has fallen so far morally and ethically that no scandal is too great and no allegation too surprising to shake the core of the game to act. Everyone sits and waits for others to put themselves at risk to openly criticise, or in hope that external forces such as governments or the commercial sector will take the lead, when the game itself must hold global leadership to account.
Australia has not emerged unscathed, with proof uncovered of a $462,000 payment made by Football Federation Australia to to CONCACAF to upgrade a stadium in Macoya in Trinidad and Tobago as part of its failed World Cup bid. It was deposited into an account used by Warner and which went missing entirely, deemed ''misappropriated''. The FFA says the money was paid to demonstrate its credentials in the area of international development.
Assuming the FFA acted in good faith, the fact that these funds came from an internal budget and not taxpayers is irrelevant. This was our game's money, paid by all of us parents in registration fees, and we should be demanding to know what occurred and seeking recovery.
The fact World Cup bidders are required to grease the wheels of support through such payments shows the game's skewed moral radar. Only last week, Alexandra Wrage, a key member of the independent governance committee advising FIFA on reforms, resigned because their recommendations were being rejected. Two of the more obvious were the appointment of independent, non-executive directors to the FIFA executive, and independent vetting of applicants for high-ranking posts. Quite simply, such vetting would remove most of the organisation running the game.
See your ad here
Self-administered reform at FIFA was always going to be a farce. The organisation is underpinned by mutually beneficial relationships, self-interest and lack of transparency.
The world's professional players have a representative body with over 50,000 members. They are the heart of the game who from time to time have taken strong stands on issues affecting their rights. But now they need to protect the rights of the game itself by demanding the global governing body accepts independent review by an international committee of players, governments and sports governance experts.
All professional players, whether current or former, have a greater responsibility to the game that has given us so much. The time has come to discharge that responsibility.
Craig Foster is a life member and former chief executive of Professional Footballers Australia.
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