The Fall of the House of FIFA

Title: The Fall of the House of FIFA

Author: David Conn

Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780224100441

Pages: 328

Football is the most popular sport in the world. It is played everywhere on the planet from deserts to marshes, from icy cold Siberia to the sweltering dry grounds of Atacama. People who love football keep afresh the memory of the first World Cup they had watched on TV or at the stadium. As for me, it was the 1986 Mexico championship in which Maradona played out his magic that glued me to the sport. Since the game is known for its ubiquity, it is essential to religiously administer all aspects of the game such as its format, rules and tournaments so as to maintain uniformity. FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) does the job of governing the sport. Football associations in each country are clubbed together into continental confederations and all of them are affiliated to FIFA. It is surprising that the organization keeps itself intact given its huge size and responds with one voice on matters related to the game. A veil of secrecy covers its administration and the wider world was blissfully unaware of how decisions are made and the flow of money inside it. With the era of globalization, financial value of TV rights skyrocketed and FIFA became flush with cash. Under the façade of professional efficiency, a corrosive torrent of corruption was eating away at the internals of the organization. Though rumours and isolated exposures had begun right from 2002, it was the large scale arrest of a third of the body’s executive committee members in 2015 that shattered its image. Joseph Blatter, the president who was in power from 1998 onwards had to make an ignominious exit soon after. David Conn examines the history of FIFA in detail from 1974 and exposes the shady deals as well as the perpetrators. Himself a football fan, his indignation at the audacious mismanagement by a clutch of venal politicians comes out loud in insightful analysis and exposition. The author is a British sports journalist and writes for ‘The Guardian’ and has three books to his credit.

A brief history of football adds interest to the first chapters as most fans are ignorant of the origins of the game they love. Football came into being in England. The ball, its proportions, layout of the pitch and rules of engagement were finalized at meetings of the FA (Football Association of England) at the Freemason’s Tavern in London’s Lincoln Inn in 1863. FIFA itself was formed in Paris in 1904 when office bearers from seven European nations assembled to create an international organization for the development and propagation of football. The FA joined it a few years later. Perhaps this explains the French name of the association. With the introduction of World Cup competitions from 1930, football began its onward march to the pinnacle among the world’s popular sports, but the financial position of FIFA was not secure. Cash began to flow literally when FIFA sold transmission rights of the championships to television networks in the 1990s.

People who headed FIFA in those days were mostly amateurs who worked dedicatedly to the good of the game. The author surmises that FIFA’s downturn in moral terms began with the ascent of Joao Havelange. He was a Brazilian businessman and sports administrator. He defeated Stanley Rous to become the President in an election in which the African associations wholeheartedly lined up behind him. Havelange ensured their support by paying their pending dues and offering money for development of football in their countries. Joseph Blatter was his secretary-general and he stepped into his shoes in 1998 when Havelange retired. Much more trouble awaited FIFA in Blatter’s election.

A major portion of the book is left aside to reveal the corrupt officials of FIFA and their underhand deals. The first scandal came out in 2002 and then it grew into a steady stream in the years ahead. Aspiring presidents had to grease the palms of the heads of national football bodies that make a collegium to elect the president. Havelange is discredited for his bribing in 1974 and Blatter in 1998. Allegations surfaced in 2015 and FIFA instituted action against Blatter and Michel Platini, the French football legend and UEFA president, over 2 million Swiss francs paid by Blatter to Platini supposedly to ensure his support for the latter in the presidential elections of 2011. Both men claimed that it was back pay for the period when Platini worked as a FIFA consultant. The strange part of the deal was that this claim was substantiated by nothing more than an oral agreement between the two made in 1998! Both failed to convince an ethics committee set up to investigate and they were thrown out of the organization for many years. In 2011, the Qatar official Mohammed bin Hammam announced that he was contesting against Blatter, but withdrew just four days prior to voting when news emerged that he had handed out cash bribes to officials of the American confederations at a Trinidad hotel. The Concacaf is the confederation steeped in corruption when it was revealed that the Dr. Joao Havelange Centre for Excellence at Trinidad for promoting training and development of promising youth, and built with $25 million of FIFA money was in fact personally owned by Jack Warner, the confederation’s president. Both Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer, who were legends when they played, were disgraced by their work in football’s administrative bodies.

Another area of malpractice is the allocation of TV rights for which the companies regularly pay kickbacks to officials. Even Havelange is implicated in this. Havelange himself and his son-in-law and President of the CBF Ricardo Teixeira took 41 million Swiss francs in bribes from ISL Company in return for selling TV rights for the World Cups in 2002 and 2006. FIFA settled this issue out of court by paying back the sums taken by the accused. It is shocking for the fans to learn that bribes were paid to the associations even to field star players in tournaments. Allocation of venues for World Cup is another cash cow for the corrupt. . South Africa paid $10 million for hosting the 2010 World Cup to buy votes of the Caribbean officials under the cover of a development program for African diaspora in America. Football world was amazed in 2010 when FIFA voted to hoist the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 event in Qatar which was nothing more than a city state. The US was a contestant for the 2022 Cup, and the casual way in which its bid was overlooked by the money power of the Gulf state infuriated its law enforcement agencies. In May 2015, a third of the members of FIFA executive committee were arrested just before voting began for Blatter’s fifth term in office and were charged under US law

The book is a fine piece of investigative journalism and is an attempt to cleanse FIFA of its endemic corruption. It is, however, a bit tiring in the latter half as the author develops the plot of payments to corrupt officials which is already hinted at in the earlier part. Even though not directly related to the topic of corruption, a few photographs would’ve added much visual appeal. The book is provided with a good index.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star