FA Humiliation at FIFA

[portlock seagull]

Precisely this. And it still greatly puzzles me how any organisation, no matter how powerful can suspend the only opponent to the incumbent and still hold the election - if this happened in North Africa they'd be out in the streets already.

But it's not N.Africa (not best example given the subject is corruption!) it's an elected body e.g. democratic world organisation. Nobody else feels the same as we English, so either we're grossly out of touch, very naive or both? It would help if our own FA was consistently fair or had the nous to handle the required reform. But they don't. This is the body that built Wembley for just shy of a billion pounds remember!! I despise FIFA, but the FA are up there with the Premiership as a force for good outside the elite few!

 

[portlock seagull]

Not really. What has that got to do with football governance? He's the best English candidate on football grounds. We're not appointing him as finance director, and he's not signing players (thankfully).

So was Terry Veneables. But they had to let him go because his off-field "Business" was affecting his ability to concentrate on the job the FA paid him for. Don't you understand the reasons against appointing Rednapp? He comes with a lot of "history" that may become the "present" at some point in the "future"

 

[El Presidente]

The FA had committed themselves to voting for Leonard Johansson as FIFA president in 1998, but changed their mind at the last minute to vote for Blatter, as he had indicated that he would support the bid for the 2006 World Cup.

They haven't learned a thing.

 

[Tooting Gull]

I think one of the main problems is that the FA were dismissive of our press before the vote and apologised for it. To then lose and go , actually our press do have a point makes them look like bad losers.
They did nothing about corruption until it cost them

What are you going to do in a World Cup bidding process - say the people voting on your bid are all corrupt? Is that what you are saying the FA should have done? You may as well pull out, maybe that's what we should have done but I don't remember too many people suggesting that at the time.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

First I've heard of that - good stuff too.

I've always loved those Germans.

Indeed, nothing bad ever came out of Germany, I've always said that ....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13613314.stm

 

[brakespear]

But it's not N.Africa (not best example given the subject is corruption!) it's an elected body e.g. democratic world organisation. Nobody else feels the same as we English, so either we're grossly out of touch, very naive or both? It would help if our own FA was consistently fair or had the nous to handle the required reform. But they don't. This is the body that built Wembley for just shy of a billion pounds remember!! I despise FIFA, but the FA are up there with the Premiership as a force for good outside the elite few!

I wssn't seriously drawing comparisons with North Africa - however, if any allegations of corruption and vote-rigging etc are true then FIFA is not democratic either surely.

 

[portlock seagull]

The FA had committed themselves to voting for Leonard Johansson as FIFA president in 1998, but changed their mind at the last minute to vote for Blatter, as he had indicated that he would support the bid for the 2006 World Cup.

They haven't learned a thing.

Precisely. So inconsistent. We make pacts with the devil himself when it suits us. The FA, as a body, are bumbling fools. And naive ones at that. A spent force that has little to show for it's objectives and purpose in the grand scale of things. Our vote doesn't make the slightest difference to anything - if you removed the "captain of our ship", it would probably not make the slightest difference.

 

[Hercules Rockerfeller]

Bernstein was on 5Live a few Sundays back and I couldn't have been less impressed with what he had to see. He's your typical posh, lily livered, non-commital, uninspiring administrator, who believes he knows what people want so doesn't care what people think. No wonder FIFA are ignoring him.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

Is it a secret ballot or will we find out who the votes and abstentions were? You would imagine the FAW, Irish FA and probably FAI were all on board.

 

[El Presidente]

Don't get me wrong, Blatter and his cronies are a cancer for the game, but we helped put him in his seat of power, and it would be great if someone/thing with a semblance of moral authority could make a stand against him.

The FA doesnn't have that moral authority though, just look at the bunch of clowns they sent when the bid took place, Beckham, a Royal and Diddy Cameron. What football administration skills and knowledge to they possess?

 

[Tooting Gull]

So was Terry Veneables. But they had to let him go because his off-field "Business" was affecting his ability to concentrate on the job the FA paid him for. Don't you understand the reasons against appointing Rednapp? He comes with a lot of "history" that may become the "present" at some point in the "future"

I understand them exactly, and I understand the FA has a decision to make. They could pick an inferior candidate because of the fears you're expressing. Personally I think there needs to be more confirmed stuff on him than at present, the knockout blow has not been landed there. If he is proven guilty on some of these things, then fair enough, give him a swerve.

 

[Jim D]

Another very significant outcome is that all future votes will be by all the FIFA reps - not just the 22 execs. This in itself will make it far more difficult to fix an election.

 

[El Presidente]

I understand them exactly, and I understand the FA has a decision to make. They could pick an inferior candidate because of the fears you're expressing. Personally I think there needs to be more confirmed stuff on him than at present, the knockout blow has not been landed there. If he is proven guilty on some of these things, then fair enough, give him a swerve.

I agree with you, but the same could be said of the FIFA reps, they have an incentive to keep it quiet, but we all know that the likes of Jack Warner have been dipping in the till for years, getting the proof is the problem.

 

[portlock seagull]

I wssn't seriously drawing comparisons with North Africa - however, if any allegations of corruption and vote-rigging etc are true then FIFA is not democratic either surely.

No democracy is exactly fair. Some are just fairer than others!

What counts here is that, on paper, Fifa is answerable to its members. These issues are then democratically voted on. So it's fair in principle and that's all that counts.

If the members of the organisation are perhaps questionnable, that's entirely different. But we have no proof. And more worrying/embarrassing for the FA no one else shares our views (I'm excluding Scotland because they're as irrelevant as we are really).

So, as I said, that makes us either we're totally out of touch, naive, or both. I'd say the latter.

 

[portlock seagull]

I understand them exactly, and I understand the FA has a decision to make. They could pick an inferior candidate because of the fears you're expressing. Personally I think there needs to be more confirmed stuff on him than at present, the knockout blow has not been landed there. If he is proven guilty on some of these things, then fair enough, give him a swerve.

But that's the trouble - such knock out habits have a nasty habit of surfacing when people are in the spotlight. And it'll burn brighter if he's England manager, for sure.

 

[Tooting Gull]

The FA doesnn't have that moral authority though, just look at the bunch of clowns they sent when the bid took place, Beckham, a Royal and Diddy Cameron. What football administration skills and knowledge to they possess?

We'll have to disagree on that one, I think the FA has the moral authority over FIFA every time. They have to answer for what they do (or don't do) to the likes of us.

I'm not here to defend all their actions, they get it spectacularly wrong sometimes. But to take your example above, what would you have done/who would you have sent? Beckham worked for the Olympics. Those people knew we could lose, but were prepared to risk making fools of themselves to get us the World Cup. As it turned out, a sackful of roubles would have worked better, but they were naively in denial about that at the time.

 

[keaton]

FA Lacks Moral Authority To Attack FIFA
Posted 01/06/11 09:22EmailPrintSave



Matthew Syed is a deserved occupant of Pseuds' Corner in Private Eye on occasion but today the Times columnist offers an important antidote to anyone at the FA in danger of getting carried away by a sense of moral superiority as David Bernstein calls for a suspension of Sepp Blatter's unopposed re-election as FIFA president. Syed charts the history of England's 2018 World Cup bid through the various attempted deals across the world, starting with the friendly international due to take place in Thailand next week that was cancelled as soon as it became clear that Worawi Makudi had not voted as hoped.

Geoff Thompson had an apparent arrangement with South Korea's Chung Mong-joon to vote for each other's 2018 and 2022 bids. Various development programmes in the third world were scrapped as the FA took their ball home in the wake of December's vote. There is insufficient space to mention the friendly that was played in Jack Warner's Trinidad & Tobago in 2008. A Portuguese journalist tells Syed: "The selectivity with which the English perceive corruption is astonishing." And the attacks by England 2018 on the Sunday Times and Panorama, for which no apology has been made, naturally get Syed's goat.

At times, he (Syed, not his goat) does seem disingenuous, though. Assessments of American foreign policy in recent years have made an important distinction between hard power and soft power: on the one hand the ability to strong-arm a reluctant government into submission with force lurking in the background, on the other the ability to persuade calling only on the benefits of working with the US. There is a difference, too, between hard and soft influence-peddling, too. There is a valid distinction between giving an official an envelope of cash and staging a match through which funds flow to that official's organisation. And Syed offers no advice on how to bid for a World Cup without this kind of outreach.

If I worked at the FA and was cornered by Syed in a discussion about morality I would be tempted to point out some of the difficulties facing a newspaper in the same stable (to which Football365 is of course also connected) as the Times, namely the News of the World. Likewise, he and I both work in a loss-making print industry that has no compunction in pointing to the financial folly of others.

Syed's conclusion, though, that tragically the FA lacks the moral authority to take a stand against Blatter, is impossible to dispute. It is with good reason that Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, has argued that football is the worst-run sport in this country and Lord Triesman's recent revelations came in parliamentary hearings into just how bad a job the FA and Premier League have done.

Of course there has been a lot of changes in personnel at the FA and it is unfair to saddle anyone starting work there with the baggage of their predecessors - yet they must carry it in the eyes of the world. It is unlikely now that the FA can bid successfully for anything beyond a youth championship for decades, but if Bernstein wants to acquire some of that moral authority he lacks and bequeath some to his successors then without looking for anything in return he should go back to the third world and find trustworthy partners for development programmes. And do so not for any greater gain than to recognise that having given the game to the world in the first place we have an obligation not to take our ball home, however shabbily treated.

Philip Cornwall

 

[Gritt23]

Indeed, nothing bad ever came out of Germany, I've always said that ....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13613314.stm

I do think the FA banging the drum has had little direct effect, but indirectly we've now got ...

- German FA sticking their head above the parapit and demanding we look into this.
- Warner suspended, and firing publically revealing an email from the General Secretary referring to Bin Hammam as "buying" the 2022 World Cup.
- Sponsors (ADIDAS and Coca Cola) publically saying they are re-considering their continued involvement with FIFA.

You can't help but wonder how much more of the above is happening out of public view. These are the moves that have come out of our FA crying foul, and it's now these issues that force FIFAs hand. While member disquiet can be subdued with an "investigation" and "discussion of the findings at the next AGM", buying enough time that this will hopefully all blow over, the sponsors is a different matter. If the CEO of Coca-Cola is currently poised over an 8-figure chq to FIFA, pen quivering in his hand, he is going to want answers and assurances NOW!!

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Australia would have had 45 million reasons to vote against the corrupt little crunt.

 

[El Presidente]

We'll have to disagree on that one, I think the FA has the moral authority over FIFA every time. They have to answer for what they do (or don't do) to the likes of us.

We're less bad than FIFA, but still bad

Syed's conclusion, though, that tragically the FA lacks the moral authority to take a stand against Blatter, is impossible to dispute. It is with good reason that Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, has argued that football is the worst-run sport in this country and Lord Triesman's recent revelations came in parliamentary hearings into just how bad a job the FA and Premier League have done.