Time to take on dictator Blatter
But home nations will bottle it
FOOTBALL’S universal approach to ethics is to ignore them. The game has become a moral vacuum. Hence why Ched Evans, a convicted rapist, will eventually find a chairman desperate enough to treat his five-year sentence as an unfortunate misunderstanding. Why FIFA, an i ncreasingly despicable and stained organisation, have dragged the reputation of football through a puddle so deep the Federal Bureau of Investigation are donning diving equipment.
And why the Football Association, the SFA and other home and European nations will stop short of spearheading a boycott of the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 event in Qatar. Despite the strong moral arguments for doing so.
If ever there was a time to make a stand, it’s now. Reasons to strip these dubious regimes of the game’s greatest spectacle are piling up.
At 9am on Thursday morning, FIFA’s ethics committee published a FIFA internal report clearing the world governing body of al l accusations of bribery and wrongdoing during the bidding process for Russia and Qatar. Whitewash was the cry.
Adding to the indignation was adjudicator Hans- Joachim Eckert’s savaging of the English FA for flouting bid rules.
England offered a spluttering defence, arguing they were at least open and transparent i n their attempts to corrupt the process. It was feeble, shabby self-justification.
Yet, compared to the Russians and Qatar, the FA are paragons of virtue.
Putin’s Russia, currently charging around violating the borders of neighbouring countries, refused t o cooperate with t he FIFA investigation, offering the equivalent of ‘the dog ate my homework’ as an explanation.
The Qatar situation, meanwhile, is increasingly shambolic.
A tiny, Muslim desert state with summer temperatures of 45 degrees centigrade — and where alcohol consumption is frowned upon — the Himalayas may be the only venue less suited to hosting a World Cup.
The entire football calendar will have to be ripped up to switch the finals to winter. All because of an election victory allegedly secured via dodgy means by Qatari official Mohamed bin Hammam.
The bribery claims surrounding bin Hammam were the reason the FIFA investigation began in the first place. Yet Eckert’s report all but ignored them. ‘Nothing to see here, move along’ was the message.
In FIFA’s eyes, the only country which actually did anything wrong and risked losing the World Cup — had they actually won the right to host it — was England. FA chairman Greg Dyke is understandably irate in response. And within Hampden and the other home associations, the FA enjoy strong support.
Time, then, for the home nations to unite and make a stand. To come together before the ScotlandEngland game on Tuesday and spearhead a European boycott of the FIFA World Cup. But they won’t.
Because, when push comes to shove, they crave the revenue and prestige competing in the World Cup brings.
Of course, Scotland has been staging an unofficial boycott of the World Cup since 1998. There is no appetite for a longer exile, even if it had the slightest prospect of attracting widespread support. The SFA simply can’t afford it.
The home nations still hold some influence at FIFA via their shared vice-presidency and the anachronistic, protected status all four enjoy on the International Football Association Board — the body established to set football’s rules and regulations.
But FIFA president Sepp Blatter retains vast power and patronage. The cosy cucumber sandwich British cabal, which makes up half of the IFAB, would come under severe strain were they to show some moral fibre and stand up to the old chancer.
If Blatter’s house of cards is to come crashing down, then, the impetus must come from figures or sponsors from outwith these shores. People who can’t afford to pick and choose their ethics.
Men l i ke Michael Garcia, the FIFA-appointed investigator from New York, who threatens to blow the doors off.
Garcia t r avelled t he world, submitted his conclusions to FIFA, then immediately dropped a bomb on Thursday by claiming Eckert’s r eport c ontained ‘ erroneous representations’.
To protect his own reputation, Garcia must now find a way to legally make the findings of his report public.
The FBI are keen to see a copy. Acting on information from Chuck Blazer, the former FIFA official, an American government agency are dangerous enemies for Blatter’s FIFA. Ditto the dogged Garcia.
More dangerous, certainly, than the British home nations who, when push comes to shove, adopt the mantra of dustman Alfred Doolittle from My Fair Lady when Professor Henry Higgins asked: ‘ Where are your principles, man?’
‘ Principles?’ replied Doolittle. ‘Can’t afford ’em, guv’nor.’