FIFA suspensions won’t solve problem
FIFA’s ethics committee handed down a harsh punishment Monday on the international soccer governing body’s president, Sepp Blatter, and the European federation’s president, Michel Platini, banning each man for eight years because of a $2 million payment by FIFA to Platini.
For people who follow soccer, it could be seen as the exclamation point to Blatter’s ousting, a final move that gets him out of soccer and makes it easier to clean up the game.
It’s not that simple. It never is. Here are five reasons this ban doesn’t mean Blatter is done or that international soccer will immediately get to a better place. BLATTER WILL APPEAL From a procedural standpoint, this is just getting started. Blatter has made it clear he will appeal the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Platini will do the same. They will say the punishment was politically motivated. (They aren’t wrong, by the way, but more on that to come.)
“There might have been an administrative error, but this was nothing to do with the ethics,” Blatter said. “This cannot be proven. If it cannot be proven, then it cannot be guilty.” THE PEOPLE WHO BANNED HIM AREN’T EXACTLY PARAGONS OF VIRTUE The FIFA ethics committee sounds like a good thing, but this was largely the same committee that allowed this mess to happen in the first place. Hans-Joachim Eckert is on the committee, and he’s the judge who took Michael Garcia’s 2008 report on FIFA ethics, summarized it (or chopped it to bits), then present- ed it to the world as evidence that FIFA was doing a good job. Garcia said it was a gross mischaracterization of his report.
These are the guys who are in charge of overseeing ethics, so the fact that they pushed Blatter out shouldn’t necessarily be seen as them doing the right thing, just that they’re pushing Blatter out. THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE FIFA’s modus operandi for years has been, whenever it’s accused of violating ethics and can’t just ignore it, it finds a fall guy, pushes him out, then keeps doing what it was already doing.
It was a running joke that anytime someone challenged Blatter for the presidency and accused him of ethics violations, that person would be found guilty of ethics violations and removed from FIFA. It’s what happened to Mohamed bin Hammam, who was banned for life after attempting to challenge Blatter for the FIFA presidency in 2011.
When everyone is dirty, it’s all about who has the most power. Blatter and Platini don’t have the power they once had, so it was their turn on the chopping block. FIFA NEEDS A SYSTEMIC OVERHAUL All this is a way of saying that FIFA is a many-headed snake, and there will always be corruption until a new regime is put in place.
This is an organization that has operated a certain way for many, many years, and, sadly, just by pushing out the two most public faces doesn’t mean it will all be fixed. Someone else will step up, someone who knows the inner workings of FIFA. That’s not a good thing. CHANGE NEEDS TO COME FROM THE OUTSIDE It’s also why if change is ever going to happen, it has to come from the outside.
That’s why soccer fans were so grateful for U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who has issued dozens of indictments in an everexpanding probe into FIFA corruption.
Critics might say she is trying to police the world. But if change is ever going to come to FIFA, it needs to come from the outside. Otherwise there will be new faces, but the organization will never change.