FIFA - Consider the alternatives

Darfur United under the sun. Photo: Humanity United.

I was going to get onto some match commentaries, but the off-the-ball play around FIFA itself is too interesting at present. With the election of Sepp Blatter for a fifth term as FIFA President, will UEFA President Michel Platini take UEFA's 53 members out of FIFA - as he threatened pre-vote? Unlikely - it would take a quarter of members out of the international body.

But if he did, where could they go. Ummm, perhaps they could join the real alternative to FIFA: ConIFA, the Confederation of Independent Football Associations.  It is a football federation for all associations outside FIFA - a global, non-profit organisation (technically, FIFA is too!) that supports representatives of international football teams from nations, de-facto nations, regions, minority peoples and sports isolated territories. Founded in 2013, and which had its own World Football Cup in June 2014 in Ostersund, Sweden.

"ConIFA aims to build bridges between people, nations, minorities and isolated regions all over the world through friendship, culture and the joy of playing football. ConIFA works for the development of affiliated members and is committed to fair play and the eradication of racism."

Membership ranges from Darfur, South Ossetia, and Quebec to the County of Nice and the principality of Monaco - one of the world's smallest nations.

Political football

When the World Cup came to Africa: Sepp Blatter (right) with South African President Jacob Zuma in 2010. Getty Images

Is Sepp Blatter really bad – is he as corrupt as other FIFA officials recently arrested (and whose guilt is still to be proven in a court of law?). The voices of condemnation are pretty universal –  in the Western world. But I’ve seen little analysis on why most of the world’s football associations support him, and those against come almost solely from Europe and (mainly white) former British colonies (NZ included). Here are two links that provide a bit more perspective: the very valid reasons why Sepp Blatter finds support in developing countries (in economic and football terms): Fifa vote: Why Africa backs Sepp Blatter.

And even though this interview with former Fifa executive Jerome Champagne aired before the vote that delivered Sepp Blatter his fifth victory, it is still the best rundown I’ve heard on how the FIFA executive works (or doesn’t), and the politicking going on behind the scenes to try to bring Sepp Blatter down (Michel Platini is no saint), and why Champagne (who earlier tried to oust Blatter), still considered him the lesser of two evils, and hoped that he would use his (likely) last term to change FIFA and turn it upside down. A forlorn hope? Only time - four years to be precise - will tell:

Still asking the question ...

… To foot the ball or not to foot the ball? Last year I boycotted the FIFA Football World Cup (the big one - for the big boys), as one Kiwi waving the flag in a worldwide protest about the abuse of power and privilege that went into Brazil's hosting of the 2014 mega-event. And launched this blog to highlight social justice issues around Brazil and FIFA at the time. (View highlights - of the blog - here.)

Well, Aotearoa New Zealand doesn't have the same kind of issues around hosting the lesser scale U-20 mens competition. But huge questions can still be asked about FIFA and some of the participating nations, such as Qatar - already in the gun for exploited foreign workers who are building - and dying - for Qatar's hosting of FIFA 2022. Nepalese workers on World Cup building sites weren't even allowed home for funerals or to visit relations after the recent quakes in Nepal.

Coupled with continued FIFA corruption (today I read that six football officials were arrested at FIFA's annual meeting in Zurich) and I feel I can't support the FIFA machine anymore, even it is just watching it for free on friends' TVs or down the back of the pub. 

And as FIFA considers whether or not to replace Sepp Blatter as President (they won't), I draw some comfort from the words of would-be presidential candidate Luis Figo, who announced his withdrawal by saying (among other things):

But over the past few months I have not only witnessed that desire (for change), I have witnessed consecutive incidents, all over the world, that should shame anyone who desires soccer to be free, clean and democratic. ... this electoral process is anything but an election. 

I am firm in my desire to take an active part in the regeneration of FIFA and I will be available for it whenever it is proven to me that we are not living under a dictatorship. I do not fear the ballot box, but I will not go along with nor will I give my consent to a process which will end on May 29 and from which soccer will not emerge the winner. ... I will not stand in what is being called an election for the FIFA presidency. 

I offer my deepest thanks to all those who have supported me and I ask them to keep alive their desire for a regeneration which, though it may take some time, will come.

 I think U2's Still haven't found what I'm looking for strikes the right chord: