"Carry On" FIFA

As if the dubious back-room dealings in awarding the World Cups of 2018 and 2022 were not an affront to all right minded football supporters, Sepp Blatter then announced unilaterally that the 2022 World Cup may be played in the winter: thus disrupting two seasons in the professional leagues around the world and Europe in particular. Swiftly afterwards, Michel Platini, who now appears to be Sepp Blatter’s ever faithful lap dog, announced that the event may be played out in several other Gulf States. Thus two key elements of the bid process: where and when, don’t appear to have been even considered in the vote process. In RTG’s business experience, the question of timing and location are almost always the most important factors in any bid or pitch.

In Sepp Blatter’s FIFA world, what he wants, he always gets. However, if the Qatari proposal had specifically highlighted a winter timetable, they surely would not have won the bid. At best, this was an amateurish and unprofessional process. At worst, it was yet more devious skulduggery from football’s bete noir. RTG is thinking the worst. Intriguingly, the Qataris themselves have dismissed these two proposals out of hand immediately.

It would appear, though, that the latest shenanigans around the Qatari bid may be the first salvos in a bitter FIFA Presidency election battle between Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Qatari FIFA Exco member, and the present incumbent Sepp Blatter. Given that Bin Hammam has been a shady financier and backer of previous Blatter elections, even if Blatter gets his just desserts in the upcoming election, we should be very wary of someone who has been an integral player in the FIFA “carry on”. The fact that he has mentioned the word “transparency” in his opening gambit for the FIFA Presidency does not bode well.

Those of you who are familiar with Andrew Jennings’ journalistic investigations – both on the Panorama programme and especially in his eye-opening book – will recognise the Sepp Blatter modus operandi:

• say the word FIFA and “transparency” together in the same sentence many times;
• deny vehemently any wrongdoings by him or any of his colleagues;
• when forced by the weight of media pressure, buy some time by announcing a new anti-corruption initiative;
• give the initiative a terms of reference that renders it powerless and unable to do its job properly;
• make sure no significant change happens and if any wrongdoing is found, make sure any sanctions imposed are light – and don’t collect any fines.

Thus, last week, a senior German lawyer, Guenter Hirsch, resigned from the FIFA Ethics Committee citing his belief that the Committee were not interested in sorting out corruption within FIFA.

Recently ex-England manager, Graham Taylor, told the press that, following a visit to FIFA HQ in the 1990’s, he was actively encouraged by a FIFA official to set up a Swiss bank account so that he could defraud his expenses. The official told him that they were all at it and that it was normal. Clearly, the climate of corruption is well established within FIFA’s corporate culture.

It is a climate that also means that genuine supporters find it increasingly hard to attend matches at the World Cup. FIFA officials help themselves to seemingly unlimited amounts of tickets which then make their way onto the black market – and with the proceeds being deposited into secret Swiss bank accounts. When Nigerian FIFA officials were recently investigated for fraud, including tickets for the World Cup, Sepp Blatter played his trump card. He simply suspended Nigeria and all its clubs from all FIFA and African Conference competitions. Hey presto, investigation stopped.

Prior to the recent World Cup bid fiasco, many football supporters had never truly appreciated the levels of corruption that exist within FIFA. This appalling sham of a process revealed to all the atrocious levels to which Blatter and FIFA will go to ensure their lucrative supply of dirty money is maintained. The truth is they have been getting away with this for over 30 years using underhand tactics to sweep allegations under the carpet in the hope that supporters will ignore or forget. For the most part it has worked.

This year Blatter comes up for re-election as President of FIFA. This time, supporters must not forget what happened and join together to bring pressure to bear to get rid of this odious man. However, RTG believes that this on its own is not enough. The culture of corruption is too deeply ingrained within FIFA. As an organisation that runs the game across the world, it must surely be disbanded in its current form and with its current executive members.

Help us to change FIFA by signing up to Reclaim the Game

Sign Up Here To Support Reclaim the Game

World’s Football Supporters Hung, Drawn and Qatared

Ten days ago, FIFA announced that Russia was to host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar was to host the 2022 tournament. FIFA President, Sepp Blatter wanted Russia as 2018 hosts and, what Blatter wants, Blatter gets. The strange choice of Qatar is more easily understood when one considers the facts that journalist, Andrew Jennings, has unearthed about the machinations of the FIFA gravy train. Qatari FA President, Mohammed Bin Hammam, has been a long time Blatter supporter, dubiously funding Blatter’s re-election to the FIFA Presidency, as well as providing material support in the form of private jets for his election campaigning, against FIFA’s own rules.

Both of the winning bids were widely thought to be the weakest technical bids and both will require the most amounts of stadia and infrastructure building projects. Whilst the choice of Russia could easily be explained away, in typical FIFA smokescreen bull manure speak, by the old ‘spreading the game throughout the world’ adage, the choice of Qatar is just an affront to the world’s football supporters, and even more importantly, an affront to the world’s environment. Outdoor air conditioned stadia, with outdoor temperatures at 40-50 degrees centigrade, powered by solar energy – all to be dismantled after the hoopla and re-located elsewhere. Carbon footprint? Who cares? Legacy - to a population of native Qataris, who number in six figures? Ridiculous. And once again, Blatter has got away with his subterfuge.

It seems that every move by the current FIFA President is designed as yet another ruse to not only get his way, but also to provide scope for the powerful members of FIFA’s ExCo to do more deals. This time around it was the double bid process which gave more deal mileage to be claimed. It has reached the stage where RTG views FIFA so cynically, that maybe even footballing decisions, such as FIFA’s reluctance to consider technology is motivated by their own desire to have referee control of matches – and referees can be lent on.

It can’t be a coincidence that the two big oil and gas rich states amidst the bidding countries, won their bids. Equally so, bigger game politics – especially France’s courting of Qatar’s resources - played a huge part. How much, we’ll probably never know. But yet more allegations of bribery have subsequently been made, which if true, makes RTG wonder why England and others bothered in the first place. After all, England had its Prime Minister, next but one King and… wait for it… a moderately good footballer who is the darling of OK magazine, as our “three lions”. Actually, maybe our bid wasn’t so good after all.

Irrespective of the technical bid, its praised presentation and the quality of the people who represented England in schmoozing with the FIFA crooks, England were never going to win their bid. Andy Anson, Chief Executive of the England bid, admitted as much afterwards. However, the process that the bid went through legitimised FIFA and its corrupt methods by allowing us to believe that England had a chance of winning, thereby forcing our bid members to kiss the proverbial FIFA arse and criticise our own nasty free press for pointing out what a bunch of crooks they are!

It’s clear that FIFA needs to be completely done away with in its current form. FIFA was set up in the days when football was trying to fend off commercial interests and remain true to a more idealistic amateur spirit. That all changed in 1974, with the election of Joao Havelenge and his subsequent handover to his heir alter ego, Sepp Blatter. Since then, it’s been run like a mafia, involving ever increasing amounts of money and dubious goings on, protected by Swiss financial laws and with no-one daring enough to take on the corruption from within or outside of the game – with notable noble media exceptions.

It is highly unlikely that we will see a World Cup in England in the next two to three decades. England gave the world football. It might be time for England to think again how best it could lead the world in football again. As RTG has long argued before, the organisation of football in this country needs to be totally revamped to deliver a winning football team and a contribution to the nation’s health. The game in this country needs to be in a better place and yes, free from the corrupting influence of commercialism, before it could counter FIFA’s hegemony.

If we can do this, then maybe England will be in a position to challenge finally FIFA’s strangle on the game, get rid of the Blatters and Warners and deliver to the world a game which truly transcends political, secret Swiss bank accounts and commercial interests, for the whole world to enjoy.

Let us know what you think and sign up to Reclaim The Game!

The Keeper

...Riyals or Roubles anyone?

The Keeper, of course, had to focus on the disappointing result to England’s 2018 World Cup bid. England, sadly, only got two votes, one of which was our own (although we’re not even sure about that). But not to worry we can leave Zurich with our heads held high. The England bid centred on football as a sport that crosses boundaries of culture and class. A sport for all. That’s why, for the pivotal part of the presentation, we sent out the future King of England, our Old Etonian Prime Minister and a multi-million pound footballer. Three chaps who can really speak for the common man.

But, to be fair, the lads really pulled out all the stops, working into the long hours to try and rally support for Team England’s challenge. They apologised for the BBC Panorama allegations and refused to accept that it could possibly have damaged our chances, or that FIFA would take any notice of anything other than the quality of the bid on offer. They were dubbed in the press “The Three Lions”. Perhaps “Three Monkeys” might have been more appropriate. See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil!

But sadly England came up short. FIFA assessed each bid on merit (not oil reserves and available cash), what they could do for developing the game of football throughout the world (definitely not oil reserves and available cash) the suitability of the facilities on offer (absolutely not oil reserves and available cash), the summer temperatures (most certainly not oil reserves and available cash) and the transport infrastructure in place (without doubt not oil reserves and available cash).

The end result of course was that Russia won the bid to host 2018 and Qatar, a desert state the size of East Anglia with one stadium holding over 50,000, and summer temperatures of 50°C plus, won the bid to host 2022. The Keeper would like to pose a question of his own at this point. How much money might it take for the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held at the Milton Keynes Snow Dome, Alaska to hold the 2015 Cricket World Cup and China to host the next Tour De France?

Enjoy your sporting memories everyone.

Media Works in Our Favour. Just This Once.

Israel, contrary to popular belief (including cynical RTG previous postings), played out of their skins to rescue England on Saturday. But thank God for the cynicism of a nation and its media. No-one could see how an Israel team, that had nothing to play for, would be victorious over a Russian team that shared many footballing, cultural and, above all, financial links with them. However, the pressure exerted by the English media, forced the Israeli coach to call a press conference prior to the match to deny ‘undue pressure’ had been applied from ‘outside’.

In a complete reversal of circumstances, following the result, the head of the Russian FA, Vitaly Mutko, cried foul. He has all but accused the English media of influencing the result of the game by energising an Israeli performance which had removed his team’s destiny out of their own hands. Additionally, it appeared to cause the Russian team to, in the words of one of their players, “shit in their pants”.

Did the English media play their part? Only the players involved can really tell. The point is that it seems normal these days to have to play a PR offensive in various media channels prior to any important match. Over many years, Sir Alex Ferguson has used various pronouncements on potentially lenient or easily led referees or xenophobic stereotypes, to head off possible obstacles to his own interests. This now seems to be a widely acceptable practice exercised by the majority of managers and coaches.

As England supporters, for once, the media has undoubtedly helped us out. Its record over the years has been the complete reverse. It has been the hirer and firer of England management over the last 35 years. And look where it has got us! For that matter, where has it got the English Premiership? Have their been any great debates about the most significant event to occur in the last five years – i.e. the arrival of billions of pounds in the form of Roman Abramovich and the securing of two Premiership titles? No. The media chose to focus on the fact that it would make the Premiership competition better by adding Chelsea to the competitive mix (i.e. to challenge Arsenal and Manchester United’s dominance of the league). Astonishingly, no downside could be appreciated, or anticipated. In fact, they chose to be positively sycophantic toward Chelsea and Abramovich. There were even pundits and commentators who expounded that blatant cheating was, in their terms, ‘excellent professionalism’. Hang your head in shame Andy Gray.

Lost in the midst of the Italian scandals of undue influence being exercised by referees in favour of the top teams in Serie A, was the manipulation of viewers of Italy’s most popular football analysis programme to those big teams. That is, controversial decisions made against the top teams were highlighted as being ‘unfair’ while controversial decisions made for those teams were glossed over and presented in a favourable light. RTG finds it hard to believe that these same sorts of influences are not being perpetrated by the media in this country.

The media in England have complained steadfastly over the last few years over lack of access to players and their remoteness. Yet, the fact is that, in its efforts to look after its own interests and not ‘bite the hand that feeds it’, the media has actually become just as remote itself. Laudable and debatable initiatives are raised but quietly and conveniently swept aside and forgotten. The Observer published a series of articles under the banner of ‘The Game that Ate Itself’ and FourFourTwo magazine published a special feature on ‘100 Ways to Save Football’. All very interesting but what has actually been achieved as a result? Nothing! Above all, what has been heard of the Stevens Report recently? What action has been taken? Nothing.

That’s why we’re doing this. There needs to be a body of people who are prepared to act. For the few of you who are reading this, we ask you to pass on the url to your fellow supporters and ask you to register with us now.

Reclaim the Game - The Weekend's Events

• As predicted in this very blog, Scotland go back to being also-rans and having to support whoever is playing England as their brave attempt to qualify from a tough group fell just short of the mark once again. A lot of talk about 'passion' and 'Scottish fans being like a twelfth man' came to nothing against the World Champions on Saturday. Ultimately, if you concentrate on good results against France and forget that you have to beat teams like Georgia, no amount of 'passion' makes a blind bit of difference. Better luck next time lads. You'll probably need it.
• Hard-hitting Times journalist and Sports Writer of the Year,2005, Martin Samuels, seems to have hit upon something that the rest of the English football-watching public missed. Speaking on the Sunday Supplement this weekend, he attributed England's problems to (and we quote) "our juniors having to play on a full-sized pitch". With no apparent explanation further than that. And there was RTG thinking it was maybe down to poor coaching, an apathetic and self-centred FA, years of neglect and unintelligent English players. Give that man a job in the FA someone!
• Moves are afoot to follow Sheffield Wednesday's example and ban the band from England games. We give this our wholehearted support. Not only are they an irritating and distracting dirge in the background of England games, they also contribute nothing to the atmosphere or encouraging England fans to sing and shout. In fact, they probably have the opposite effect. Whoever thought this was a good idea, are probably the same people who think a good England manager is one who clenches his fists a lot, runs around his technical area whistling and who makes waving hand gestures at his players that they neither see nor understand.
• England have been thrown a lifeline. Two things we should remember about this. Firstly, this does not mean that performances against Russia, Croatia and Macedonia have gone away. They still happened and they were still bad. Secondly, Steve Mclaren is not suddenly a good manager. We're not there yet but, if we get there, (and in the absence of any likely appointment of Jose Mourinho) he's probably as good as anyone available for the job. Hopefully that hasn't depressed you too much.

Hat's Off, Take a Bow (or not!)

Player of the Week - David Healy. Broke Davor Suker's record for number of goals scored in a European Championship qualifying campaign with a tally of 13 so far. Admittedly he has had 12 games in which to achieve it which Davor most likely did not. Interestingly, he can't get near goal-starved Fulham's starting eleven.

Villain of the Week - All those people (RTG included) who predicted Israel would lay down and roll over for Russia. Shame on us all! But thank God we answered our country's call when it mattered.

Hero of the Week - Omer Golan. Nice one old son. At least for the time being got us out of a tight spot.

Cliche of the Week - 'Golan Scales New Heights.' Or something similar.

Shock of the Week - The effort and sheer determination put in by Israel to prove that they were going to go for it.

Do We Not Like That?

In a throwback to the bad old Graham Taylor England days, we are left contemplating various permutations for qualification to Euro 2008. So if Macedonia beat Croatia, and then we beat Croatia by a three goal margin or Israel draw or win against Russia and then we beat Croatia - we're through! Never going to happen. RTG hopes you took our advice from our September 6th posting not to book your flights to Austria or Switzerland.

Of the scenarios above, according to the form book, we are most likely left relying on Israel to get points off Russia. Let's take a look at the likelihood of this for a moment. We've already discussed in this blog last week how influence and interests of wealthy football investors appear shrouded in confusion and potentially detrimental to competition in the sport. Roman Abramovich is a major contributor to the Russian national team and is believed to bankroll Gus Hiddink's salary. He also 'found' the funding for the new Russian national stadium. Strangely, he doesn't seem able to afford to put underfloor heating in the stadium but we'll gloss over that for now.

But his influence also extends to Israeli football. He attempted to purchase Hapoel Tel Aviv in 2005 but was advised, given he is owner of Chelsea, not to do so. Consequently he persuaded his wealthy, close friend, Lev Leviev, to get involved with Israeli football and buy them instead. He seems to be most comfortable when he surrounds himself with Jewish/Russian cronies anyway. Take Avram Grant and Pini Zahavi as clear examples of this. Whichever way you choose to look at it, he clearly has major connections with both Israeli and Russian football. Can we really expect an Israeli team who are already out of the competition to go all out for victory? We don't think so, nor do we expect Croatia to lose to Macedonia.

Let's make no excuses for England's failure last night. We've heard a lot about "lack of passion" and "wanting to wear the shirt" ad nauseam from the pundits but the bottom line is we have not been good enough in what should have been a comfortable group. We made a promising start last night against Russia where we attacked and defended comfortably, and managed to take a one goal lead into the half-time break. But Russia's tactical changes saw us retreat further and further back until we were left looking like a bunch of clueless hoofers.

This has been a worrying trend right back to the Euro 2000 tournament where we were brutally exposed in our inability to keep possession of the ball. In his defence Sven Goran Eriksson must have realised this from the onset of his tenure because he turned us into a long ball side, capable of qualifying out of a group but shown wanting against the better sides. Last night we could blame Robinson, Rooney, plastic pitches or the ref if we wanted but, the way we were playing last night, it seemed inevitable that Russia would score again once they had equalised. The talent is there no doubt but the tactics and the intelligence to win important matches are not. Gus Hiddink out thought Steve McClaren completely and in an interview last night said that he knew that if you put the English defence under sustained pressure they would struggle to cope. And struggle they did.

Where do we go now? We've already discussed the problem lies deeper than just the manager but Steve McClaren clearly has to go. Who to replace him? Is there somebody out there with the tactical know-how, winning attitude, skin of a rhino and ability to get the best out of English players? Ole Jose!

Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events

• The BBC have been preparing, over the last week, for announcing redundancies to recover a £2 Billion deficit. Here's some suggestions to recover part of the debt: 1. Concentrate on acquiring the sport in the first place and don't pay the useless, ex-footballers, but with no brain pundits - e.g. Alan (I'm so Mary Popiins, my wife makes me do this) Shearer, Ian (the louder I shout, the more people believe my credibility) Wright and several others who don't add anything to our coverage to make it worth the expense; 2. Keep your serious football reporters and get rid of Chris Hollins who seemed to spend the whole of Germany 2006, at our expense, reporting on anything but football. What on earth do WAG massages and making Black Forest Gateaux have to do with World Cup football? 3. Gaby Logan - why? 4. Stop sending Five Live's Nicky Campbell to every major sporting occasion just for us to have to listen to him recounting his previous evening's corporate (also at our expense) entertainment over breakfast. Do the BBC, or any TV company for that matter, not understand the basic supply and demand laws of economics. There are millions of people willing to do presenting jobs out there. The desire to do the job should pay for itself.
• The collective intellectual footballing brain that is the Sky Sports pundit team, suggested one solution to England's qualification woes is to 'bring back David Beckham'. Well, when he gets his place back in the LA Galaxy team perhaps it might be a 'solution' (?@!*@??&*) worth thinking about. Solution? It's too late to help us now thanks chaps but you keep spouting out the first thing that comes into your brain rather than giving any serious thought to something that might be worth hearing.
• Sammy Lee, despite being the early favourite, was not the first Premiership manager to get the boot this season. Just goes to show that promoting second in command to overall General doesn't seem to work. FA take note...........hmmmmm.