FIFA - death, corruption and football

"For the good of the game" - really??

Regular readers will know that I love football.  Passionately.  My small, local club from where I grew up was on the edge of being relelgated out of the professional English football league altogether 6 years ago, but this year has won promotion to the Premier League.  Next year Bournemouth will be playing against the likes of Manchester United, City and Chelsea.

This concept is as ridiculous as it is amazing.  Or just, amazingly ridiculous.  Through my parents my boyhood team was Manchester United.  AFC Bournemouth were a team I started to watch when I was an older teen because they were local and I had started working so could afford to go.

Following the two clubs was fine, as the idea they would be playing in the same league would be as much a possibility as if I had chosen my second team from Portugal - it was never going to happen.  And yet, here we are.

But then attaching the tag "amazingly ridiculous" is quite fitting with football.  After all, just look at the international governing body for the sport - FIFA.

Football is a passion with many contradictions.  Over the years, aside from the action that has taken place on the pitch, there have been issues regarding racism, homophobia and violence, from both players and fans of the game.

Growing up in the 80s all these things were the norm in football, although thankfully a lot has changed.  The issues are still there, but at least when you hear that a footballer or group of fans have been racist, such as John Terry or Chelsea fans, you are shocked.  In the 80s it was so prevelant it made you sad, but not shocked.

However, there is nothing in the game more appalling than the governing body.  FIFA takes that yard stick and it runs away with it!

At the time of writing the FIFA congress is taking place, and we are in the middle of the voting process to decide the next president of FIFA.  The election is between the current president, Sepp Blatter, and his challenger Prince Ali bin-Hussein of Jordan.

The congress is mired in controversey, although that's nothing new.  FIFA being mired in controversey is like a jam sandwich at a picnic being mired in bees.  You might not like it, but what did you expect?

The big controversey at this time is that shortly before the congress took place a number of FIFA officials have been arrested in Switzerland on behalf of the US Department of Justice looking into accusations of bribery where officials were being paid kick backs by TV executives in order to secure rights to show World Cup matches.

The investigation has apparently been going on for a while, with former FIFA exec member Chuck Blazer, who had quietly pleaded guilty already, wearing a wire to meetings with FIFA officials to help the Dept. of Justice gather evidence.  He'd better stay out of jail for his efforts, because on the inside no one likes a grass!

At the same time the Swiss office of the Attorney General has started an investigation looking in to corruption around the voting process which decided the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World cups, which were Russia and Qatar respectively.

The fact that Russia and Qatar that were selected should be enough to inspire doubt.  First of all Russia - they love annexing parts of other countries but hate the gays.  Not really an inspiring choce to say the least.

But trumping them by some way is Qatar as a choice.  Seriously - Qatar!

In answer to everyone's first question "where???", Qatar is a small oil rich country in the middle east with a population of just over 2 million people.  It is also a country where in the summer temperatures can get as high as 50°c (122° fahrenheit).  A strange, if not insane choice for a host of a football tournament.

But worse than the conditions for playing football itself, are the conditions for workers.  Perhaps you have seen this graphic already being shared on social media:

Needless to say, the statistics are shocking.  According to a report by the Guardian newspaper Immigrant Nepalese workers in Qatar are dying at a rate of 1 person every two days.  They calculate the death toll of Nepalese, Indian and Bangladeshi workers to be 964 in 2012-13.

That should be shocking enough to make FIFA reconsider it's decision to award the tournament to Qatar, but then the death toll of labourers in Qatar will not come as surprise to them, as there would be deaths of workers even without a World Cup.

The International Trade union Confederation estimate there have been over 1200 deaths so far, with another 4000 expected to die by 2022.  Corruption and kick backs are bad enough, but now FIFA have blood on their hands.

Scourge of the poor and oxygen thief Prime Minister David Cameron describes FIFA corruption as the "ugly side of the beautiful game".  And he supports Aston Villa/West Ham/insert football team name here so he knows what he's talking about.

But FIFA appears to beyond reform.  Sepp Blatter is still expected to win the election comfortably.  He has support from the bulk of Asian and African confederation countries after delivering both World Cups in their continents, as well as money for the development of the game.

Some would say that all that money provides much needed investment in the grass roots game in developing countries, others would call it further corruption to enhance Sepp Blatter's power base.  To be honest, both sides of that argument might have a point.

But hey, the fact that 7 officials have been arrested and the election hasn't been postponed at all tells you that this is an organisation without a sense of shame.  I mean, if there is any chance of a shake up it will come because sponsors such as McDonalds have threatened to withdraw their support unless reforms are made.

You know your organisation is evil when you can let McDonalds be the one to take the moral high ground.

Also, Blatter's opponenant is a Jordanian Prince!  FIFA is so backward that it takes a figure from a Feudal system of governance to be seen as a great reformer.

At the end of the day, FIFA may be the governing body, but ordinary football fans do not recognise them as part of their game.  Next year I wll be trying to see as many Bournemouth games, home and away, as I can, and experiencing the wonders that the game can provide.

If the 2022 World Cup does go ahead in Qatar, then I won't be watching it that year.  I love football, but I won't have blood on my hands.

"We are Premier League!!"

A funny old game?

Football is a bizarre hobby.  The commitment it evokes from its followers is as such that many fans would be wiping rage induced foam from their mouth just at my suggestion that it is a “hobby” at all.  For a significant number of people it is not just a hobby, but a way of life.  Legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankley once said “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude.  I can assure you, it is much, much more important than that.”

There is no form of entertainment like football.  Andrew Lloyd Webber fans don’t beat up Leonard Bernstein fans if they come across them in the West End, Coronation St has never started a riot, nobody has rearranged their wedding because it clashed with the release of the latest World of Warcraft game.  Popular music can be tribalist at times (think The Beatles v. The Stones, Mods v. Rockers, etc), but this often artificially created rivalry pales in significance to that of football.

Now, I like to consider myself a practical man.  Someone who is able to stand back and see the bigger picture, take a scientific approach.  Art though, has its own rules and yes, I am including sport as art.

Football is a mess of contradictions.  We pay high entrance fees and TV subscription rates to watch a bunch of millionaires, made wealthy from the money out of our pockets.  The footballers themselves are often not just wealthy, but vulgar with it.  Smashing up sports cars like they are toys, getting in to fights outside clubs, and sexually using and abusing women like disposable play things.

The lifestyle our financial contributions are helping to fund is often morally repugnant to even the most open minded of individuals.  Yet, it is amazing what football fans are willing to ignore.  Accusations of rape, racist abuse, and so much more are put to one side when cheering on your team.  Paolo Di Canio has just been announced as the new manager of Sunderland, and his history as a proud fascist has fuelled anger at this appointment.  And yet we all know that if he wins a few games whilst in charge, the vast majority of fans will forget all this.  In no way am I suggesting Sunderland fans are less morally or ethically sound than any other football fan, because this would be the outcome at any football club.

And yet, somehow, football has me.  Completely.

I have experienced football in two very different spheres.  On the one hand there is my first love in football, the most highly supported team in the world and, by the very nature of football, therefore the most hated as well: Manchester United.

This was bestowed by my family, as is often the case.  Unusually maybe, this inheritance was in no way forced, or even assumed.  As a child I hated all sport, as it seemed that it’s only reason for existing was for my Father to deny me the chance to watch cartoons on TV.  Sport just got in the way.  And yet, by the time I was 10, I felt like I might be missing out on something.  Perhaps these were the first stirrings of the adolescent need to conform.  I don’t remember.  I was 10!

So I adopted my Mothers team.  As it is from my Mothers side, there was never any pressure from within my family that this is something I had to do.  Nurturing and caring, my mother would never have pressured me in to doing anything I didn’t want to do.  My dad was neutral on the issue, as he has always insisted that he supports both City and United (to put this in to a historical context, imagine the effect of making a lovely cup of tea, and alternating between taking careful sips of it and then dipping your knackers in it).

So I decided I was going to like football, because it was just something you should do.  Like drinking beer, the taste at first may seem bitter, yet it gives way to intoxication.  That year United won the very first premiership trophy, their first league trophy in 26 years.  With such an excellent sense of timing, you can understand why I would eventually decide to become a comedian!

Of course it would be expected of many that I would support Manchester United due to where I was brought up in Manchester.  South Manchester.  Very south Manchester.  Ok... Dorset.

Eventually though the pull of my local team had its effect, and I eventually started to go and see AFC Bournemouth.  Many died-in-the-wool football fans will insist you should support your local team, but there genuinely was not a pull for me when I was growing up.  Existing in the third tier of league football, I didn’t know any friends at school who were Bournemouth fans.  I only went the first time because United legend Mark Hughes was playing for Southampton there in a friendly.  But that summer I started to go to every home match.  At the time I was just 16, and thanks to my first summer job I had the money and the independence for the first time to go to football by myself.

This was a very different kind of football to that seen at Old Trafford.  Up front was Steve Fletcher.  A striker who might score 10 goals a season if he played particularly well.  Used as a target man, if he didn’t win the ball in the air he would make sure he elbowed the defender instead.  A player with little finesse, skill, and certainly no pace.  Over time though I would come to accept that this man is a legend.  And I do mean that in the present tense because he still plays for Bournemouth now, at the age of 40 (Ryan Giggs eat your heart out!).

Such a legend, in fact, that one of the three stands at our ground, Dean Court, is named after him.  That’s right – three stands.  Any fans of rectangles out there will know that they invariably have four sides, and yet we only have three sides to our ground.  Three fully seated stands, and a car park.  This was not the world’s first “drive in” football ground as you may think.  No, we didn’t build a forth stand because we couldn’t afford to.

This is because Bournemouth has been paupers for years, a club constantly under threat of administration.  But now, as the universe has been engulfed by financial despair, the cosmos has been turned seemingly on its head because Bournemouth now has money.  In fact, we’re one of the highest invested in teams in the league which is, frankly, mad!

We have a strong squad and a great manager in Eddie Howe.  Maybe in the coming years 10,000s will flock to see the mighty Cherries, but for now at least we can still be assured of that “authentic” league football experience of flocking in our 100s to places like Bury.  Grounds so low in attendance that when you arrive you are not given a seat number, merely allowed entrance to an entire stand and told to “sit where you like”.  Compare that to trying to get tickets to Old Trafford, and you will understand what I mean when I say that I have experienced football at both ends of the spectrum.  Even then, whether it’s Old Trafford or Dean Court, and taking in to account all the myriad contradictions inherent in football, it is still a thrill to experience the beautiful game!