Heated discussions about the decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup will surely continue over the coming weeks, months and years, but ultimately even those who have defended FIFA’s preference for the tiny Gulf state will concede that history won’t remember the whole affair with any great fondness. Talk of collusion between the Qatar and Spain/Portugal bids have diminished with the decision to award the 2018 hosting duties to Russia, but a more general mood of scepticism and disdain still lingers. FIFA must by now be aware that there is a growing public opinion weighted against them, and not just within the countries that have seen their expensive acts of obsequiousness spat back at them by the likes of Jack Warner.
To that end, Sepp Blatter has publicly talked about “cleaning up” FIFA in the wake of the Sunday Times’ cash for votes exposé. Sure, the significance of this pledge could be overstated- at the time Blatter was more concerned with delivering trenchant criticism of the ethics behind the Times investigation, and he only promised to “clean up a little bit”- but the admission itself, coupled with the suspension of Executive Committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii, does suggest that Blatter and FIFA might not be completely tin-eared when it comes to responding to criticism.
Yet FIFA’s image problem requires more than mere cosmetic overhaul. Yes, suspensions and expulsions go some way towards addressing the problems within the organisation, but to truly reassure the football community that FIFA is clean and transparent, more substantial gestures are required. It may take root-and-branch reform to fully erase the ill will generated by the endemic corruption, tacit legitimising of autocratic regimes, exploitation of workers rights, and willingness to exert excessive pressure over those who get into bed with it, that has characterised the organisation over the past half-century and beyond.
For now, at the very least, FIFA needs to reassess the manner in which the host of its showpiece event is determined. At present, it uses a ‘secret ballot’ method of voting, a system which – in the context of an organisation as historically unscrupulous as FIFA- is practically begging for abuse.
An example: at yesterday’s vote for the 2018 World Cup, the Dutch/Belgian bids received 4 first round votes, while the Russian bid received 9 votes. The number of votes for the Spain/Portugal bid was 7. In the second round the number of votes for the Holland/Belgium bid had dwindled to 2, while number of Russian votes had risen to 13. The Spanish/Portuguese bid remained at 7. Thus Russia had acquired an extra 4 votes between the first and second round, including, presumably, the two votes of the recently-eliminated England bid, while Netherlands/Belgium bid had somehow managed to lose 2.
How and why did this happen? Surely it’s naive to believe that- after all the analysis of presentations, of bid books, of technical reports, all the handshakes, stadium tours, long lunches and late-night summits with bid reps – two ExCo members would suddenly change their minds about the quality of the Holland/Belgium bid in between the first and second round of voting?
The credible assumption would be that the two ‘Hollgium’ deserters (props to Henry Winter) were chiefly allied with Russia, and chose to back the Dutch/Belgian bid initially. They then switched back to Russia once the England bid- deemed a more dangerous threat that Hollgium in terms of acquiring second-preference votes- had been derailed. With England and the Dutch/Belgian bid out of the way they could get on with taclking ‘Sportugal’. In actuality this entire act of duplicity was rendered irrelevant by England’s paltry first round votes total. Nevertheless, such duplicitious behaviour shouldn’t be overlooked.
It’s worth noting that FIFA originally announced that even the voting figures themselves would not be disclosed, before a late reversal. Clearly there is an eagerness within FIFA to hide all aspects of their voting practises from the wider public, which in itself is quite concerning. Why should ExCo members be afforded discretion? There’s no compelling reason to suggest that they really need the security provided by a secret ballot. We’re not talking about some poor beleaguered souls seeking voter protection from a totalitarian regime here. These are some of the most powerful individuals involved in the game. Elected by the FIFA congress, who themselves are representatives of FIFA member associations, they clearly have a mandate to govern with transparency and integrity, and there’s no reason why that shouldn’t extend to the way in which they determine who gets to host their much-vaunted tournament.
Surely then, what is really required is an open and publicised ballot and even, to go a stage further, a statement from each voting Executive Committee member outlining the factors that informed their decision. This would add some much-needed transparency to the affair. More importantly, it would allow supporters a greater understanding of why and how a vote has been made. Shouldn’t British football supporters, for example, be entitled to know how Geoff Thompson- FIFA vice-president for the Home Nations and ExCo member- chose to use his vote for the 2022 bid, and the reasoning behind his selection? By the same logic, under an open voting process Dutch and Belgian football fans would have received an explanation for the aforementioned dubious vote shift that scuppered their bid. In fact, a publicised ballot would probably have deterred those two shady ExCo members from attempting their sudden and inexplicable vote shift at all.
Some would argue that full disclosure of ExCo voting practices would change little; that unprincipled members could simply hide their true motivations by recycling the same generic language used by bidding nations themselves: “building a legacy”, “fostering a spirit of inclusion” and “expanding in key markets”. True, but it would at least be a baby step in the right direction; a quiet admission by this bloated, discredited organisation that it is willing to acknowledge the necessity of change.
