Blatter, Bribes and the Bizarre FIFA Election

Sport always seem to dominate the news, and this week has been no different; the Monaco GP, the Champions League final (which my esteemed colleague Bren blogged about recently), the French Open. Even tickets finally being allocated for next years London Olympics. However, the world governing organisation of football, FIFA, has topped them all.

Why?

Sepp Blatter, the current president of FIFA, wanted to be re-elected but he only had one challenger for his position, Mohamed Bin Hamman. Coincidently - or maybe not - a few weeks before the election (which was this week), news emerged that Bin Hamman accepted bribes for votes on host countries for the 2018 and 2022 World cups. Consequently, Bin Hamman decided not to challenge Sepp Blatter for the presidency. Additionally, Sepp Blatter himself has been accused of bribery.

Previous problems

The English football governing organisation, the FA, has previously accused FIFA members of bribery. England applied to be the host of the 2018 World Cup but their application failed, and they claimed that FIFA members were asking for bribes so that they would vote for them.

FIFA election

Mainly because of the accusations made about Blatter, the FA did not support him and wanted the FIFA election to be postponed. This was to no avail, as the majority of the delegates voted to proceed with the election. Unsurprisingly, Blatter was re-elected as he obviously had no challengers so the election was all very strange and pointless.

The English FA

I think the English FA are equally as corrupt and inept, but they made the right decision to go against FIFA this time. However, their decisive action was criticised by other nations for their lack of support. Blatter has since said that he would not want revenge on England, no matter how critical they were about him.

Anger

This whole situation just highlights how much and how far corruption and ineptitude is within the FIFA. I used to be a passionate supporter of England but now, I don t really care too much about the World Cup, as FIFA has obviously chosen the hosts on the basis of money. Blatter claimed it was to bring football to new places, but if that was the reason, why was their even a bidding process when they had this mindset? It was a waste of money for those other countries who submitted a bid (such as England).

Football and life

A colleague recently asked me why people like football and support teams, and that they are better off supporting horses. I understand their criticism but unfortunately, football is not just a hobby. It transcends just being a sport. It is a passion and that is something you can t remove. To a lot of people, football isn t everything in life. It s the only thing.

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