Tag: Brazil

The Grinch That Stole Football

The Grinch That Stole Football

I feel quite the misery guts writing this article at the start of what should be football’s fun season. For the next month fans of the beautiful game can wake up to that Christmas Day morning feeling every day. Savouring every kick from the sixty-four matches on offer. We won’t be able to watch them all, but we’ll try our damndest. But just like Christmas, it seems there has to be a time when the gloss and mystique falls away, where we remember it with nostalgia but see it for what it really is. In football we never had a moment where we realised Santa wasn’t real (he is, if there’s any children reading this) but we do have our own version of The Grinch. Joseph Blatter or Sepp. Quite fitting a nickname for a man that has become a septic shock to the world of football. Allowing greed and corruption to infect the once healthy body. The only time he isn’t lying is when he’s being absurd. He’s The Grinch that stole our game.

When I try to recall the first World Cup I can clearly remember, Italia 90 wins. There are moments of Mexico 86 that I have recollections of but they are hazy and contain only fleeting glimpses of games. The big picture, sense of tournament, the prestige, all came four years later. It was the World Cup in Italy I first lapped up. Each new record or minor pinnacle felt momentous. Watching Cameroon emerge, for example, was like a Hollywood movie. The whole tournament had that sense of grandeur, like I was watching the best – and ultimately for us England fans, painful – script ever. “Nessun Dorma” provided a great soundtrack and we even had a breakout star, a former unknown, with a cute name: Toto Schillaci. Okay, the final wasn’t great but we’d been served a classic tournament.

Italia90

Italia 90 will be remembered as a great World Cup because it was all about the football. Fast forward to Brazil 2014, or FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil as the governing body would like to have it, and all that sense of something special I felt back in 1990 has gone. Even just using “Italia” instead of Italy, as it would be packaged now, added to a one-off spectacle. Back then it wasn’t about FIFA, it was for football. You could argue I viewed my first “proper” World Cup with rose tinted glasses. Maybe? But I’m not so sure children today are watching events in South America with that same sense of excitement. Leading into the tournament the talk has all been about unfinished stadiums, riots, corruption, Sepp Blatter.

The opening ceremony was a chance to put the negatives behind us and – with no rose tinted glasses available – take off the reality specs for a short while. I really tried. There was nothing more I wanted when I settled down to watch the opening of the cup last night than to be absorbed by Brazil. I wanted them to surprise and shock me. Deliver a taste of their culture. Make my already high levels of anticipation burst. Instead I was given what looked like a failed school project mess around for twenty minutes before J-Lo and a man named “Pitbull” (whom could well be Right Said Fred trying to escape extradition like “Buster” Phil Collins before him) sing into microphones that hadn’t been correctly connected to speakers.

I hate to mention money because it’s the root of the problems within the game but it’s hard to see where $9 million dollars went for that ceremony. London 2012 showed us that it is possible to do a ceremony on a budget (£27 million spread across all four ceremonies associated with both Olympic and Paralympic games, each longer than the thirty minutes Brazil managed). In Qatar! What About Brazil? I discussed that money has disappeared and been wasted during World Cup preparation. Last night you saw with your own eyes how $9 million could disappear on a yellow ground sheet, a swirly ball from nineties Ibiza, and a few school art classes. It’s easy to see how $11.4 billion – yes, billion – has been seen as a waste to the Brazilian public.

For the youthful eye we did have a decent first match but even that has been the topic of controversy this morning. The ref awarded Brazil a weak penalty and many believe Croatia denied a fair goal. The last thing the organisers needed was any black marks against the first match. They need Brazil to perform well to win over a disgruntled public. They have a long way to go. Clashes and riots continued after the game. The ITV studio even got pelted, although to place that in some sort of context, they had subjected the airwaves to ninety minutes of Andy Townsend and Clive Tyldesley – so probably deserved. The ITV coverage sandwiched the match between clips of riots followed by reports of more riots. Nostalgia or not for Italia 90, times have changed. The game has changed.

Olympic rings

Where did it all go wrong then? It’s when FIFA stopped acting as a benevolent protector of the sport and became interested in greed, power and money. If one thinks of the Olympics they’ll recognise how they try to put sport front and centre. After that they express a real desire to carry the momentum of the games forward to the next generation in the form of its legacy. Unity and respect binds these ideals. I’m not saying the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is perfect but the biggest scandal to emerge from an Olympic games is an athlete failing a drugs test. In the build-up they do have the pressures and negative reports about areas struggling to be completed in time, but on the ground, in the countries where it happens, they are all pulling in the same direction to get the job done. The long list of Summer Olympic controversies is invariably made up of sporting disputes. Rarely – if ever – do you consider the IOC as an evil big business.

For football it’s a different story. Commercialism, capitalism, cash – they’re FIFA motifs. And dictatorships. The on-field errors teams accept, the game moves on. The main controversies surrounding the sport come from the exterior. Corruption claims that grow, appearing more substantial by the day, are dealt with nonchalantly by Sepp Blatter. His latest remark, met with many groans, was saying the British press were racist for calling the Qatar bid into question. I can only assume Ali G is one of his advisors. To make such an unsubstantiated statement shows how far removed from reality he is.

He is fair and gives everyone a chance to see his senility. In another moment of magic he spoke about how the World Cup would one day be played on other planets. That it’d become an Intergalactic Cup. You’d have to fear coming up against the Klingons in this scenario, a big, tough, industrious team. But they’d all bear a resemblance to Joleon Lescott so would leak the odd silly goal. Remember this is the same obtuse man that remarked women’s football should be played in tighter clothes to attract male viewers. So a jump to Galaxy Football isn’t that far a stretch in his head.

Maybe one day there will be calls for a unified World Cup but it’ll have nothing to do with little green men on Mars. It could well be after nations and confederations divide, creating multiple world champions playing in separate tournaments. Boxing is in my holy trinity of sports (I must be attracted to ones embroiled in corruption claims) and in the 1960s saw multiple Heavyweight Champions when the separate WBA and WBC belts came into operation. Since then the situation has snowballed, there are now handfuls of belts and several different bodies seen as legitimate. But the fan always knows who the true champion is. Mayweather could sell PPVs as the best in the world without a title and no one would argue. At the end of his career Lennox Lewis could have fought for chocolate buttons and every heavyweight in the world would have dreamt of having them over gold.

We wouldn’t ever want the World Cup to be undervalued this way. It should always remain an undisputed focal point. It is okay to have the debate that the Champions League has a better standard than international football nowadays, maybe in that sense the World Cup isn’t the hardest to win. But it remains the most prestigious. To see it undermined by having multiple international World Trophies would be a great shame. But people have breaking points. Sponsors are calling for corruption claims to be taken seriously and the man on the street doesn’t trust FIFA anymore. Sepp currently has the backing from the majority of confederations. But these poorer areas have been directly served by his wealth. He has bought their voice. He has no support within UEFA, though. An area of the world that demands transparency and doesn’t require handouts to operate.

We’re being sold a product that’s no longer legit. The man selling it publically lies – even on the issue about standing down after his current term. FIFA are supposed to be non-profit, like the IOC. Instead they swallow up dirty money faster than they lose creditability. Someone needs to take a stand. There is a sign that within the seemingly tight stranglehold of FIFA’s overbearing rules flex and manoeuvre exists. Take for example straight red cards. Under Blatter’s Law they – regardless of TV replays – should be adhered to with immediate suspension by the governing FA, without a chance of recourse. He wants his little SS officers on the pitch to be the first and final say. The English Premier League ignores this order from the Fuehrer. Allowing straight reds (but not two yellows) to receive an appeal. FIFA have never intervened.

Perhaps the threat of an additional tournament played outside of FIFA’s jurisdiction would be enough to bring sense back to the table. Or even a breakaway club cup in the summer. The unfairly treated, FFP-punished oil-rich teams could let Qatar have a warm up competition. Played under the guise of a friendly but offering a healthy boost to club coffers. It may take this sort of action to show Sepp Blatter and his cronies they can’t keep playing with our sport for political gain. The fear is we end up with Michel Platini as a direct replacement. But if enough people collectively stop dancing to the beat of FIFA’s drum there’s a chance a healthy alternative will appear.

World Cup

Until then I’m going to enjoy the sixty-four games, focusing my attention to just the matches. The Grinch may have stolen the innocence of game. FIFA may have lost credibility. But he’ll never take away twenty-two men on the pitch.

Enjoy the World Cup.

Qatar! What about Brazil?

Qatar! What about Brazil?

Ask football fans the biggest problem facing future FIFA World Cups and they’ll more often than not mention the heat issue in Qatar, more specifically, the calls from some quarters to make it a winter World Cup. What most of these fans, with their legitimate fears over Qatar’s ability to host and the nature of their acquisition, overlook, are the shortfalls facing next year’s tournament. It’s as if the world is turning the other cheek because of Brazil’s glamorous sporting history. But for the day-to-day folks on streets across Brazil they care less for football than they do for an improved quality of life.

The problem at the heart of the situation arose back in March 2003, when FIFA announced that South America would hold the tournament. It sounded reasonable, the continent had been travelling to World Cups across the globe since it last acted as hosts during Argentina ’78. Without a challenged bidding process from the other confederations it was left to the countries within South America to create candidates. Much muted alliances never materialised; hence, Brazil was chosen without a rival bid. Less choice is bad. That lack of competition was unhealthy. We’ll get back to that process – of bidding and attempting to sell your bid – in a minute. The cause has resulted in a Brazil unprepared and a tournament, which by all accounts, should be in jeopardy.

The cancellation of Soccerex, a football industry conference scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro, should have raised alarm bells. Instead it was reported with a murmur before being buried amongst far more entertaining football stories or snippets from Alex Ferguson’s autobiography (or character recollections). The organisers claimed the ongoing civil unrest was to blame. The State of Rio says it was due to Soccerex lacking private funding and they wouldn’t spend any public money to hold the event.

The truth may well be both, just played off against one another for political gains. There have been well documented violent protests across Brazil; Soccerex probably would have liked to have been helped out with a donation from the Brazilians. For the State of Rio to claim they wouldn’t waste public money in this manner is quite cheeky, though. As if to appease the protesters that claim public services should be funded over the World Cup, the Brazilian figure heads are ignoring – or failing to mention – that their World Cup has already cost them three and a half times that of the South African one, and more than double Germany 2006.

Where has all that money gone? Stadiums alone amount to £550M, another £2 billion on airports, £1.1 billion for works attached to the “Growth Acceleration Programme”; this doesn’t include spending on things like the buses, they come in at £375M for a better fleet. Facts and figures can be generated all day, to put it in the best perspective a recent protester was quoted saying: “We love the World Cup, we love sports – what we don’t accept is a government which wants to look good by investing millions in the World Cup but forgets about health and public education.” Sounds reasonable to me.

The truth in that statement highlights the hypocrisy and self-serving attitude that football’s governing body lives by. They care little for the effects on the supporters of the beautiful game as long as their bank accounts increase exponentially. Brazil didn’t even have to bid against other nations and prove they could host an effective games, let alone afford one. And FIFA doesn’t care if a country runs itself into the ground as long as they make money in the process. A football club may be banned from competition if it exceeds Financial Fair Play guidelines but it’s perfectly acceptable for a nation’s health service and education system to crumble if FIFA make a tidy sum of cash.

These are the people of the world they claim to care so much about. The people they wish to bring football to. The people that are all equal and should come together under the banner of football. But, for the people that come together, some are more equal than others. They fail to take strong action against clubs when their fans use racist chants. They suggest openly through President Sepp Blatter that homosexuals should refrain from activity during the Qatar World Cup. So certain groups are willingly ostracised if it serves their greater good (which in FIFA’s case is always money).

This brings us neatly back to the topic of bidding for a World Cup, and selling your bid as an attractive option. Well Qatar went about it in a slightly different fashion. To cut a long-ish story short, they bought the World Cup. Why waste time having the best bid when you can just purchase the thing instead. Allegations have since been retracted but it’s plain to see how the process really works. If it was just about new areas hosting and the strongest bid winning then Australia would be 2022 hosts. As it stands they are poised to strike FIFA with a legal serving. If the 2022 does indeed become a winter games they will seek compensation for expenditure incurred for their failed bid. They entered a process for a fixed tournament with stringent parameters, to then shift it to a different time of year voids that process. Sounds reasonable.

The time of year appears to be the big debate with Qatar. The English say it will affect three years of Premier League fixtures if it’s moved to winter. Michel Platini, very maturely, pointed out football’s fixture list had suited the English for one hundred and fifty years so we could change just once (albeit three years running). These squabbles take away from the most important point: we should spare a thought for the migrant workers building the 2022 World Cup. Often denied food and water it’s estimated that up to four thousand will perish. It’s not slavery if it serves FIFA; it must be acceptable. Because the World Cup is all about bringing people together.

Qatar

And the next World Cup, that’s getting ever closer, is bringing the people together. The real people on the streets. Mass protests hampered the Confederations Cup, this served as a warning that was ignored. Since then the outrage has become more violent with police vehicles torched. Yet, people power alone might not be what brings Brazil 2014 to its knees, ironically it could be the same greed and bureaucracy that drives its Big Daddy, FIFA, on.

Most major tournaments face that scare mongering close to the curtain call. Whether it be an Olympic games in Greece or a World Cup in Russia (they’ve come out of this article unscathed and unmentioned), they’ll always be panic that the place won’t be ready. But they always are and always will be. The chances are, civil unrest included, Brazilians will take to the World Cup, embrace it and put on a great show. There’s also a high chance they won’t be ready in time. No really, this isn’t me scare mongering now. For several months I have been back and forth to Brazil. What I have found is a county unable to function in a modern and professional manner. It ties itself up in red tape at every corner and there’s always a tax be applied at an extortionate rate. They lack the impetus to move forward because too many are looking for short term pots of gold. All those billions spent – from public money – will have lined the pockets of the rich while structures remain half built with no sign of progress.

For the fans that do come to Brazil they’ll be met with aged modes of transport, crowded roads alongside semi-built ones, legitimate ATM machines that still magically clone cards, and locals that will enjoy the games then return to under-funded lives and a country with less cash than ever to spare for its working class. Perhaps a last minute switch to the USA won’t be such a bad thing, as long as we keep Diana Ross away from the opening ceremony.

Qatar and Brazil, two very different World Cups. One bought, then a further £138 billion ploughed in to build it; the other taken as the only choice and built with money that should be supporting future generations. Both will continue to face criticisms along the way, before collectively we all will watch as fans, taking the immoral choice to ignore human rights issues for short-lived sporting entertainment, embracing ignorance, thusly legitimising wrong doings. Two World Cup bidding processes without genuine competition, and what are we left with . . . .perhaps no competition at all.