Football fans - walk away (unless you're being anti-sexist)

Photo: Moazzam Brohi

In an earlier blog I highlighted the Facebook campaign calling for a boycott of FIFA's main sponsors. But according to analysis today from the Globe and Mail, sponsors aint gonna walk away from FIFA unless the fans do too. Some quotes:

“People are not turning in their tickets to the Women’s World Cup, or saying they’re not going to watch the matches on TV. At the end of the day, the sponsors will follow the fans,” said Jim Andrews, senior vice-president at Chicago-based sports marketing firm IEG. “Until the consumers say we’re not going to support the sport because of what’s going on, the sponsors will follow the fans.” 

“FIFA has become a byword for shady dealings,” said Chris Renner, chief executive officer of Helios Partners, which markets sporting events around the world. “But the World Cup will always be bulletproof, there’s no question about it. It’s just too great a competition to even have the guys that run it screw it up. All you’ve got to basically do is get 11 players on each side and roll a ball out and the thing’s going to happen – and 60,000 people will show up.”

Mind you – some are urging people specifically to support the Women’s World Cup, because they get such a raw deal in the sport – and not just because of the astroturf some are being forced to play on in Canada. Read this article about sexism in ‘the beautiful game’, and and then maybe you can might feel ok about watching New Zealand v China tomorrow (11.30am our time) in the Women’s World Cup.

Please FIFA, can we have our Ball back?

We love football, but we abhor, and are embarrassed by, FIFA.

This is the slogan of NewFIFANow – a movement for change within football that was launched in January 2015. They background a lot of the issues that have been brought more to light since the arrests in Zurich of FIFA officials.

The group wants to achieving genuine, long-lasting change in the governance of world football. Their Charter is a demand for change “for everyone who loves football: fans, players, sponsors, broadcasters, those who work in media and who form our governments.” These are people who believe football can truly be a force for good, and not let those words be an empty, hollow slogan for yet-another money-grubbing multinational. They say on their website:

It is for everyone who is of the view that football deserves a world governing body that is free of corruption, mismanagement and self-interest.

It is for everyone who wants to see football governed by people who make decisions and take action in a transparent manner, and who are held accountable in the best interests of the sport and civil society. 

And it is for everyone who shares in the community of football around the world.

They have called on FIFA ‘to have the same level of transparency and accountability that most citizens expect of their governments, major institutions and organisations’. To get there they are seeking ‘an interim time-limited administration, led by an eminent person with a broad mandate to develop a new constitution, governance arrangements and policies and conduct new elections.’

And by jove – you know – I think they’ll get it. Or something like it. The ball is rolling – I don’t think anyone can stop it now. But where it will end up is anyone’s guess.

This whole FIFA debacle and unravelling gives me great cause for hope in regard to any form of corruption or injustice. Let’s keep the ball rolling.

Support NewFIFANow – sign the petition!

Turf wars - unequal playing fields

NZ v Canada at the Women's World Cup - Getty Images

With the Women's World Cup underway in Canada, I thought it was about time to highlight the injustices within FIFA - like the decision to play on artificial turf - a harder surface to play on, and which can lead to severe grazes.

Top female soccer players took FIFA to court about it, but the world body wouldn't even accept a compromise offer to have the 2015 Canadian tournament played on artificial grass until the semifinals, third-place and final matches.

Ultimately, the players dropped their legal fight, saying they were "doing what FIFA and CSA have proven incapable of: putting the sport of soccer first."

Blowing the whistle on Qatar

With Qatar playing today in the Under-20s, I thought it was about time to look at the country (currently) set to host World Cup 2022.

The Guardian of Britain is among those that have highlighted recently the appalling conditions and high death rate for migrant workers in Qatar. Among the shocking stats are Play Fair Qatar’s predictions that more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament. That’s no price to pay for sport.

Attention on Qatar has been increasing this year, especially with stronger indications – in the whole FIFA debacle – that dirty deals may have been behind not just the upcoming Russia and Qatar competitions, but in earlier tournaments going back the 1990s.

The website Equal Times reported in February 2013 that injuries from falls by construction workers in Qatar had reached record highs – more than 1,000 workers a year - in the 2022 World Cup building boom. Most were migrant workers, who make up 99 per cent of the private sector workforce in Qatar. Ten per cent of those injured faced permanent disability.

Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said Qatar was a “21st-century slave state”.

A Human Rights Watch World Report 2014 said migrants in Qatar continued “to experience serious rights violations, including forced labor and arbitrary restrictions on the right to leave Qatar, which expose them to exploitation and abuse by employers.”

Of Qatar’s population of 2 million, only 10 percent are Qatari nationals, and the number of economically active foreign nationals increased by 122,000 (about 10 percent), in the 12 months to April 2013.

Workers are subject to various restrictions by their employers.: “The kafala (sponsorship) system ties a migrant worker’s legal residence to his or her employer, or sponsor. Migrant workers commonly complain that employers fail to pay their wages on time if at all, ...”

They must also get an exit visa from their sponsor in order to leave. This may be refused arbitrarily, or their employer may accuse them of criminal or civil offences – leading to an indefinite travel ban. Even some highly-paid expatriates have found themselves trapped in Qatar in such a way – such as French professional footballer Zahir Belounis, and three former employees of the Al Jazeera Children’s Channel.

You want to do something about this? Check out the campaign websites:

• http://www.rerunthevote.org
• http://playfairqatar.org.uk

Keeping it clean - Macclesfield for 2026 WC

Let's just skip all the current controversy over arrests, shock resignations and questionable 2018 (Russia) and 2022 (Qatar) competitions and shoot straight to 2026. By that time, FIFA would have sorted itself, and we can sit down to a jolly old, right royal English - and I'm sure CLEAN - competition in Macclesfield. (Where???)

Yep, the town in Cheshire, England (FA Trophy winners in 1970 and 1996) has launched what must be a no-brainer bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. No new stadia required - the town has history on its side. I'm sure climate change concerns will have overtaken corruption and embezzlement by that time, so the seating capacity will impose some natural limits. Here's what the proponents say:

The imposing, 124-year-old Moss Rose ground, with a capacity of 6,335 (including 2,599 seats for VIPs and assorted football dignitaries), would be the centrepiece of the bid, supported by World Cup-ready venues such as Booth Street - home of Congleton Town FC - which can accommodate almost 1,500 fans from across the globe. ... 

Other venues, all within reach of local bus services, include the King George V Playing Field, opened in 1855 and with room for a crowd of 200 (plus fourteen dogs, which comfortably meets Fifa World Cup specifications for canine spectators). …  The world's media will enjoy state-of-the-art facilities, thanks to "free Wi-Fi available at Macclesfield Library [which] will continue throughout the tournament."  ...

Because the average temperature in Macclesfield in June is a whopping 14.1°C we recommend that air conditioned stadia are used.

(Read the full bid - which includes canine capacity for all stadia.)

Must be a winner - even surpassing the prospect of an NZ-Australia bid - which has an enormous ditch to cross.

Stick it to the sponsors

Prince William at the FA Cup final. Photo: BBC.

Did you know there's a Facebook community advocating for people to put pressure on key FIFA sponsors to pull their funds - or exercise leverage for change.

Sponsors targetted include: Adidas, Coca Cola, Kia, Hyundai, Emirates, Sony, Visa, Budweiser, Castrol, Continental, McDonalds, oi, Seara, Itaú, Liberty Seguros, Chocolates Nescau. Organisers are asking people to boycott these companies, their subsidiaries and their brands. The Campaign is not intended to question the products, services or general business practices of the companies themselves. It's intended to send a message to the companies that their support of FIFA is causing them to lose business - ultimately with the hope that the sponsors will withdraw their support for FIFA until such time as it eliminates corruption as much as reasonably possible.

(Mmm, this raises a predicament for me - the only company of the above I use is VISA, but I need to clear my debts first - unless I could negotiate a favourable transfer of funds ….)

TV satirist John Oliver also got stuck into FIFA on his "Last Week Tonight" show yesterday - and pledged severe sacrifices (on his part) to FIFA's sponsors, if only they would get rid of Sepp Blatter.

Meanwhile, Prince William used the opportunity of the FA Cup final at the home of football to call for reform of the world's governing body. He said: "There seems to be a huge disconnect between the sense of fair play that guides those playing and supporting the game, and the allegations of corruption that have long lingered around the management of the sport internationally. … Those backing Fifa, such as sponsors and the regional confederations, must do their bit to press these reforms - we are doing football and its fans no favours if we do not."

Will he be our Prince to slay the mighty dragon?

Who's the corruptest of them all?

Seeing as FIFA has given us the lead on levels of corruption, we thought we’d look at how competing countries at the Under-20s measure up on their own corruption stakes – or rather, how Transparency International rates them.

Well, for the match between Hungary and North Korea this afternoon – there’s no contest (just as there was no contest in Germany’s 8-1 rout over Fiji earlier today). So, according to Transparency, North Korea scores just 3 points on the 0-100 scale (where 0=very corrupt) and is ranked just one up from ; while Hungary scores 54/100 and is placed 47^th out of 175 countries. Still a long way to go – especially with regard to fair consultation on legislation and a rapidly revolving door between public and private sector for high-flying jobs. (See Hungary - Overview.)

 

For the other game of this afternoon, there’s more of an even match between Honduras and Uzbekistan. Though both are in the lower third in corruption levels, a simple look at the figures would pick Honduras to win with 29 points (ranked 126) over Uzbekistan’s 18 points, which puts it at 166 of 175. 

Photo source: Transparency International