Greg Dyke says it would be “very nice”, now that Sepp Blatter has revealed the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia was a foregone conclusion, were the taxpayers’ money involved in England’s elaborate, expensive and ultimately futile bid to be returned. The FA chairman, however, is not exactly confident of such an outcome. “Get the bid costs back from whom? Fifa? We will ask some questions about what Mr Blatter has said, but this is uncharted territory.”
Indeed, and what you need for that is a bold explorer willing to defy convention and redraw the boundaries of the known world, not someone who sounds meeker than a mouse. England have a case here: almost the entire football world with the exception of Russia and Qatar appears to have been shafted by Fifa but the unsuccessful bidders for 2018 were particularly wronged, and what would actually be very nice is some leadership.
Dyke is in charge of the FA, after all, an organisation of some repute within the game and one that predates Fifa by almost half a century. The deference he shows to Blatter’s long-discredited regime suggests Fifa has always been a difficulty national associations have been obliged to get round, a negative fact of life no one can do much about, a force so powerful it cannot be counteracted or confronted. In point of fact, Fifa was formed in 1904 by existing football associations to arrange and oversee international competitions. As Uefa and other continental federations came along later to take over what might be termed the minutiae of that brief, Fifa was left with only the World Cup to organise and promote. As has just been shown – well, actually, as has consistently been shown over a period of years – it does not fulfil its prime function very well. Yet even now, even with Blatter and his would-be successor Michel Platini under investigation and fresh controversy emerging almost daily, preparations are under way for a presidential election and conceivably a new regime even ghastlier than the old one. But don’t worry. Dyke of England has promised to quiz Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa about alleged, and refuted, human rights abuses in Bahrain before he decides whether or not to give him his vote.
What, it might be asked, did football ever do to deserve this unnecessary and unappetising bureaucracy layer? Does a sport really have to turn to undemocratic countries for its leaders just to be able to provide a World Cup every four years? Rugby union has just put on a World Cup that seemed to be perfectly well organised and well received without any bribes or vote-rigging scandals, no deaths of migrant construction workers and not even the faintest whiff of torture or human rights abuse. It is true that rugby is not a worldwide game in the same sense as football, and it must simplify things considerably when only a relatively small number of familiar nations wish to take part, yet even so the basic principles for a World Cup are long established. You organise a qualification schedule, decide on a suitable number of finalists, then stage the tournament in a country keen enough on the game and capable enough of providing venues befitting the occasion.
That Fifa seems to have departed from that basic blueprint in recent years says more about Blatter’s presidency than it does about the viability and popularity of World Cups. What football as a whole, and individual associations in particular, ought to be doing is wresting back some of the ground they have conceded, not allowing Fifa a remit to carry on with more of the same. Football having conquered the entire world might be a curse in some ways, but in others it can be seen as a blessing. There is hardly anyone left to convert any more, few new borders to cross, no need for evangelism because everyone has got the message. What Blatter was irritatingly fond of calling the football family has grown up now; it is not parents and children, everyone can make their own decisions and the obvious one to make first is that Fifa has outlived its usefulness. Who, apart from those lining their pockets or seeking publicity for their own ends, would actually miss it? Certainly not those nations who have ended up out of pocket after staging tournaments, through a mixture of ill-advised overspend on white elephant stadiums and suspension of their normal tax rules to allow Fifa to maximise its profit.
Yet while the desire to make Fifa disappear grows stronger by the day, the difficulty lies in working out how to do it. It would be a mistake to expect too much of Uefa, the continental federations are too bound up with the governing body. In any case, Fifa’s members are national associations, not regional ones. The FA happens to be the oldest, and should set a lead, along with, say, other countries who have won or staged a World Cup. Of course, it would be nice to get some money back for the lost cause that was the England 2018 World Cup bid. But asking for a refund seems about the most timid, inadequate response imaginable to what has just taken place. Asking some hard questions would be a lot better, but maybe asking other associations for support in a breakaway would be the best idea of all.
Fifa was formed by football associations, there seems no reason why it should not be dissolved in the same way. It would be hard to persuade a majority into such a course of action, perhaps, but together the bigger football nations would be impossible to ignore. At some point, ideally before Fifa’s next presidential jamboree, football has to stop the tail wagging the dog.
