FA

Insideworldfootball.biz

Michel Platini’s Financial Fair Play may finally deal with the financial doping the UEFA President feels is ruining the game. But there is an equally serious crisis confronting the game which Platini and other football administrators refuse to address.

This is the failure by football’s bosses to deal with the events on the pitch where almost every game is blighted by incidents the referees do not spot. These then become the subject of calls for disciplinary inquiries by frustrated managers, and often lead to heavy penalties for the players concerned. But these are imposed long after the match is history and the whole thing is making a mockery of the game.

Take the two incidents that have marred two otherwise very good football matches in recent weeks. The first was the match last Sunday week, when Manchester City beat Tottenham 3-2, probably ending the north London’s club hopes of winning the League for the first time since 1961, a time which must seem like prehistory to most football fans.

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Evening Standard

Damning report: select committee chairman Whittingdale and their scathing criticism of FIFA. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

John Whittingdale accepts that England could be seen as bad losers. We are discussing today’s report by the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport on the failed 2018 World Cup bid, which says it is “appalling” how FIFA have swept aside “allegations of corruption” against members of its executive. To make matters worse, say the MPs, FIFA are treating those making the allegations with “contempt”.

“There is a danger that, having got a derisory two votes, one of them English, we will be accused of sour grapes,” says Whittingdale, chairman of the committee. “But it is not. The evidence of corruption is overwhelming.

“We have some criticism about the England bid. But there was substantial corruption in the process and that was an additional hurdle and put a huge question mark over the entire bid.”

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Insideworldfootball.biz

FIFA will come in for unprecedented criticism from a House of Commons Select Committee over its handling of the corruption allegations surrounding World Cup bids next week.

This is believed to be at the centre of a special report on the England 2018 World Cup bid which will be made public next Tuesday (July 5), after being finalised by MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport committee last Tuesday (June 21).

It is understood that what provoked the Parliamentary wrath is the way Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, brushed aside the explosive evidence given to MPs by Lord Triesman, former chairman of the Football Association, about favours asked by FIFA executive members in return for supporting England’s bid.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

Is there anybody at FIFA minding the shop? Sepp Blatter, the President, clearly does not give the impression he is.

He may strut about as if he is the head of a unique Vatican-style sporting state, no territory or army, but through football, as the Vatican does through religion, reaching out to places no politician can. But the FIFA corruption crisis has exposed the fact that while Blatter is a master tactician who can turn almost every short term situation to his advantage, he is not a strategist.

Blatter desperately needs to have a strategy to cope with the FIFA corruption crisis, the worst in the organisation’s history. But not only is there no evidence Blatter has a strategy, he does not even seem to appreciate the need to develop one. At every step he has given the impression of reacting to events, rather than being in charge.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

Can Sepp Blatter turn round the fortunes of FIFA like Juan Antonio Samaranch once did the International Olympic (IOC)?

To even pose this question shows how far we have come from the dark days of the Olympic Movement back in 1998.

Also, it shows how much we now need to re-evaluate the role of the Spaniard.

Indeed, we need to move away from the caricature of Samaranch being just a lackey of Franco, the Spanish dictator, who only looked after himself and had no vision of sports and left no legacy behind.

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