New brooms needed to sweep clean
The governance of sports underwent a seismic shift in 2015 as both soccer and track and field faced major corruption scandals. Decades of these major sports operating under secret cabals of long-term leaders came crashing down amid bribery and conspiracy charges ( FIFA) and doping scandals (IAAF).
Track and field had sought to move on from the reign of Lamine Diack by electing British middle- distance running legend Sebastian Coe to be its new leader. Then the doping scandal broke, which laid bare the negligence and corruption of Diack’s regime and cost Russia a banishment from the sport until it could return itself to the good graces of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Coe was left shaken — his cosy relationship with Nike was quickly put under the microscope — and he has a massive job in 2016 to restore the sport to public trust.
As for soccer, the unwinding of the deep roots of FIFA’s worldwide kleptocracy will begin in earnest, possibly, on Feb. 26, when a new president is elected to replace Sepp Blatter. After 17 years as the head of the snake, he was banned for eight years this week for the one misappropriation of funds FIFA’s new ethics committee could pin to him. His assumed replacement, the former French midfielder and captain Michel Platini, was believed to be the one person who could move the sport away from its past. But Platini went down with Blatter over a strange consulting payment they could never properly explain, except to themselves.
The field, then, is wide open for the election. Despite dozens of federal charges laid in the U. S. and the arrests of national and regional soccer administrators from Central and South America, FIFA remains a body filled with men who have had their hands out for a piece of FIFA’s bounty for years. And it is they who will elect the next president. Will they get the hint that fans, governments and law enforcement are on to them? Or will they attempt to maintain the status quo and hope the world stops paying attention?