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: