Armour: FIFA must clean house or face 'disaster'
In the murky cesspool that is FIFA, all that’s clear is soccer’s governing body can’t fix itself and everybody needs to go. The Executive Committee, the Congress, the folks waiting in the wings to have their pockets lined — all of them.
There may be one or two honorable people at FIFA who could lead the clean-up efforts — though apparently they’re trapped under something heavy given their silence these past few months — but the corruption and fraud is so endemic, so systemic, that everyone is tainted.
With Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and Jerome Valcke — the three most powerful men in international soccer — suspended Thursday, there is only one way to restore confidence in FIFA and remove the dark and widening smudge on the beautiful game, and that’s with new and independent leadership. People who haven’t been involved with FIFA, at least not at the highest levels, and who won’t be conflicted about making the tough choices needed to clean up an organization that has become rotten to the core.
“Enough is enough,” International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said in a statement, echoing the frustration of soccer fans everywhere. “We hope that now, finally, everyone at FIFA has at last understood that they cannot continue to remain passive. They must act swiftly to regain credibility because you cannot forever dissociate the credibility of FIFA from the credibility of football.”
Or, as the International Centre for Sport Security said, “Football, not just FIFA stands on the precipice of disaster.”
That may sound overly dramatic, but consider this: Filling in for Blatter as FIFA’s acting president is Issa Hayatou, who was reprimanded by the IOC for his role in a kickbacks scandal. Next in line to Platini, Blatter’s would-be heir apparent, as head of European soccer would be Angel Maria Villar, who is not exactly in the clear himself in the investigation into alleged corruption surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.
Since the 2010 votes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, a dozen members of FIFA’s executive committee have either stepped aside, or been ousted or suspended because of corruption allegations. Yes, you read that right, a dozen. There’d be another name on that list, but Julio Grondona died before his malfeasance came to light.
And there’s yet another handful who have caught the attention of Swiss investigators. Blatter and Platini’s suspensions are the result of a Swiss criminal investigation into a $2 million payment Blatter made to Platini.
So much dirt and filth has built up during Blatter’s reign that even when you can remove a layer or two of it, there’s always more below. With sponsor anger and public disgust mounting, an intervention is the best hope of saving FIFA.
FIFA’s rules prevent outside leadership, requiring its president to have been involved in soccer at a high level, nationally or internationally, in two of the last five years. But if there was ever a time for rules to be set aside, this is it.
FIFA needs a leader who is both well-respected and beyond reproach. Most importantly, it needs someone who is bigger than the game, who doesn’t need soccer to define him or her.
Someone like Kofi Annan, the former head of the United Nations. Or, when she’s through running the most powerful country in Europe, German chancellor Angela Merkel. Both are passionate fans of the game, and would have no use for the greed that’s been FIFA’s driving force over the past two decades.
Nawal El Moutawakel, a well-regarded vice president at the IOC, would be a good choice, too. She’s sat on FIFA committees in the past, and would be an effective antidote to the governing body’s woeful attitude toward women’s soccer.
FIFA’s Executive Committee — or what’s left of it — is already planning an emergency meeting, probably within the next week or two. Undoubtedly, some members will insist that the reform effort should stay in-house, that they can make the changes FIFA needs.
But they’ve had decades of chances, and look where it’s gotten them: One embarrassing scandal after another that has left FIFA with zero credibility.
If the powers that be at FIFA love the game as much as they claim to, and not just the king-like lifestyle it’s given them, they’ll do the right thing and turn it over to someone else. It may be the last chance FIFA has left.