Yes, Fifa has problems – but Sepp Blatter is a champion of world football
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Version 0 of 1. A few weeks before Friday’s election for the Fifa presidency I was at the All India Football Federation’s HQ – a smart two-storey building on the New Delhi outskirts – where a large photograph of a man wearing a beaming smile and sombre blue suit greets you. A brass plaque acknowledges his visit in 2007 to open what is described as “India’s football hub” and tells you who he is: Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter. Related: How Sepp Blatter won the hearts and minds of Africa to ride out Fifa storms “What’s being reported about Fifa and Blatter from Europe is not something that we in Indian football recognise,” Kushal Das, the federation’s general secretary, told me. “Fifa have been extremely supportive of us, without them we would be nowhere. It is a fantastic organisation and they are doing a wonderful job to grow the game in India and around the world.” No prizes for guessing who Das voted for on Friday. Football analysts have been working overtime recently to tell us how Blatter owes his power to an unholy alliance of mainly Asian and African officials who, like him, have their fingers in the till. Of course, Fifa has chronic problems that require a major overhaul in how it does business. Under Blatter’s presidency, which started in 1998, world football’s governing body has lurched from one corruption crisis to another. The arrest of seven senior Fifa officials in dawn raids last week speaks for itself. But is it really true, as many in the western media would have us believe, that all Blatter’s supporters have their noses in the trough? The Fifa president secured 133 votes in the first round, the bulk of them from Asian and African nations; his opponent, Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein, received just 73. My visit to the AIFF suggested that history and politics, and not just cash, might explain why the Swiss administrator enjoys such popularity beyond Europe. In the past three years Fifa has invested an estimated £8m in India for artificial pitches, academies and development programmes. I saw that they were not the result of wasteful spending – as many reports have alleged – but popular programmes playing a crucial role in developing football in a country where it suffers chronically poor funding. Every three months a Fifa performance team visits AIFF’s headquarters to monitor its spending; the organisation’s accounts are independently audited. The $1m cost of building its headquarters was provided entirely by Fifa. In 2017 India is to stage its first Fifa tournament, the Under-17 World Cup. Bids for other tournaments are expected over the next five years. About 70% of Fifa’s profits go back into football via its 209 member associations. Critics say that this promotes corruption – but while there are genuine concerns as to where some of this money goes, Blatter’s popularity stems not just from Fifa’s generous funding. He has built on the work of his predecessor, the Brazilian João Havelange, to move Fifa away from its origins when it was little more than a private club for rich European nations where those from Africa, Asia and the Americas were shabbily treated and had no say in how it was run. Few remember that England’s finest football moment, the 1966 World Cup, was actually boycotted by African nations Few remember that England’s finest football moment, the 1966 World Cup, was actually boycotted by African nations because they did not have a direct qualifying spot. Under Blatter’s presidency Africa had its first World Cup (South Africa, 2010), as did Asia (Japan and South Korea, 2002). The number of World Cup places for teams from the two continents has increased from two each to five for Africa and four for Asia. Football officials from nations beyond Europe are now an integral part of Fifa’s decision-making progress. Many of them see the attacks on Blatter as part of a campaign by Uefa, European football’s governing body, to return Fifa to the days when the old continent’s elite controlled the world game. These fears are compounded by the way football in Europe is run, where rich clubs have got richer and Uefa makes little attempt to distribute its wealth in the interests of the game, something Fifa prides itself on. Blatter faces an arduous task in rebuilding Fifa’s and his own reputation. But for the Das and the other 132 who voted for Blatter, whatever challenges lie ahead they believe they are better off – and not just financially – with Blatter. |