Lets give some context. In June 1998, Sepp Blatter was elected as FIFA president during 51st Congress, what took place in Paris. Today, 17 years and 3 months later, Blatter is on his fifth term, although it is going to be short, because as most of the world knows, he resigned back in June 2nd, 2015. Still he will stay in office until the next Congress, which takes place Febuary 26th, 2016, in Zurich. Today, corruption charges are piling up against Blatter and his close associates as his reign is coming to an end. And we know that Blatter, Michel Platini and Secretary General Jerome Valcke got 90-day suspension by the ethics commitee month ago.
All this and many more corruption scandals haunt Sepp Blatter's 17 years of reigning. But how does this tear the organization apart?
Firstly, lets start with the sport itself. Football (or soccer) is world's most popular sport. There are 250 million players in over 150 countries. Think about that. That is over a million players per country average and yet some of those countries do not even have populace of 100 000, like San Marino for instance. Another important thing is that those, who play the game, are united. Not just players, but fans as well. Football (and sports overall) should be something, where politics shouldn't go in too much. Sadly FIFA is one of those cases, where politics (and therefore corruption) has gone too far.
Why? Because it breaks our morale, our hearts, our passion, if world knows that sport is governed by those, who are not honest, open or friendly towards football itself.
Secondly, decisions made in FIFA, mainly those, what are linked to World Cup's future, are horrible or downright destructive. In December 2010, World Cup 2018 and 2022 were awarded to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
Well, maybe back then awarding 2018 World Cup to Russia wasn't such a bad idea, but today all that has changed and twisted into another series of corruption charges that the votes may have been bribed, because of geopolitic situation and war against Ukraine. FIFA even went so far in video made year ago for the 2018 World Cup that Crimean peninsula was shown as part of Russia.
Later governing body apologised for that though, but it raised question - who rules over who? FIFA rules over World Cup bidders or vice versa?
Thirdly, Qatar is even worst case. One only could imagine the reaction of the world, when Blatter pulls out the winning bid for 2022 World Cup and on the paper was "QATAR". 12 seconds of joy, but 12years of misery, what is prior to the 2022 World Cup, if counting down from 2010. Bribery accusations were even stronger. As matter of fact, they were so strong, that whole world talked about it. Literally. Why? Because climate of Qatar forced to put the World Cup dates to November-December and that triggered big domino effect. From winning bid to bribery accusations.
From bribery accusations to date changes. From date changes to outrage of major football leagues like Barclay's Premier League, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga. All the named league seasons are on full throttle in November-December and suddenly FIFA forces them to stop it. Because the World Cup. Furthermore worker conditions are horrible. Hundreds of immigrant workers die each year. That is just wrong. Why should be World Cup a event, where hundreds of workers "sacrifice" themselves to build stadiums? But it shouldn't. It should unify mankind, but not at the cost of lives.
FIFA as organization needs to revamp itself. And thoroughly. While corruption charges only build up to current and former high officials, FIFA really needs to think about, what they have done.
What is football coming to these days. We don't want a sport, what is governed by corrupt leaders, we want sport, what is governed openly, honestly and fairly to all players and fans. Because they deserve it. First chance to make huge changes appears in Febuary 26th. They better take the most of it.
