Strictly speaking it could be argued that every state in America should have it's own vote, every county in Britain, etc. etc. The only democratic way, (if that's what we're talking about), is for every individual to have a vote. As that's clearly not practical then something like the UN model is probably the best way to do it I'd say. Powerful countries who play a tremendous amount of football and pour enormous amounts of money into it have a bigger say than those people that, a) aren't bothered enough to play or watch much even WITH large populations, or, b) have populations so small as to make their opinion not matter as individual nations. They'd have to vote as a block with other nations of the same size. Just looking at some of these... http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/smallcountries.htm I'd say if your country can't even manage to put together a crowd that would fill Wembley Stadium even if they ALL turned up or it's so small it can be cycled across in an afternoon by an elderly lady with a shopping basket full of groceries, you're probably not entitled to a say as to where the WC goes. The other thing is that most of the big football countries DO want to 'spread the word', as it were. As money comes in for stuff like sponsorship and ticket sales they'd be MORE than happy to spend some in poorer countries to help them. The thing is atm it seems to be being given as back handers to various shady characters in small countries. That's not helping ANYONE... well, except them, obviously That's what's so annoying about the position atm where the 2018 WC went to Russia. I don't think you'd find anybody in England that thought, (leaving aside the shenanigans that went on), that was the wrong decision on it's own terms. Russia's a massive country with a lot of people who play and watch football and the 'Eastern Block', (if we can still use that phrase now), has never had one. Put simply it was 'their turn'. We're not happy we only got 1 vote as that's bloody ridiculous and was obviously done as our media were pointing up how crooked the whole thing is but the decision itself was probably fair. But QATAR??? Over Australia?.. or even the USA for that matter. That was a LUDICROUS decision. I'd say the aussies should clearly have had it if for no other reason that the USA had one in '94 which, in these terms, isn't that long ago. That's what's so difficult to take. That it was clearly bought and the people that sold it obviously don't give two shits about the game and THEN to have to listen to this crap about 'Ooh, you're just being an elitist European', (when we're comfortable seeing it go to the russkies), is beyond the bloody pale, tbh.
As far as 2018 goes I wouldn't be shocked if Putin had made Blatter an "offer he couldn't refuse"....... ....Putin didn't show up for the vote....didn't need to.
The "clean-up" has begun. Without it there can be no reform: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...n-Hammam-and-Jack-Warner-takes-new-twist.html Louis Freeh? Sounds like a start...
FA could pay for failed challenge to Sepp Blatter with attack on its Fifa privileges Have to say, I would generally support these reforms. I don't see why the home nations should continue to have these privileges in today's football world. It shouldn't be done immediately however because the FA dared to challenge the election. That would send the completely wrong message.
The biggest political issue that has to be addressed within FIFA is the balance of power between the small nations and the big nations. Consider the fact that only 25% of FIFA's 208 members have qualified for a World Cup in the past ten years, and you see what I'm getting at, namely the fact that most FIFA members are small countries which couldn't give a hoot about the World Cup or where it is held. Look at the fact that two of FIFA's vice-presidents are from Qatar and Trinidad & Tobago, or that the vote to decide the 2006 WC host was decided by a delegate from Tahiti, or the fact that the two newest ExCo vice-presidents are from those noted soccer powers Papua New Guinea and Jordan, with another new regular ExCo member having been added from Sri Lanka to go along with delegates from Thailand and Cyprus. The simple fact is that small nations who care nothing about the World Cup have way too much influence over where it is held and how it is run. Although Blatter's proposal to have all 208 member nations vote on future hosts is a step in the right direction, it still leaves too much power in the hands of small nations that are not impacted much by the decisions FIFA makes. What I would propose that every nation start out with one vote, as currently planned, but with nations earning one additional vote for each time they have qualified for the World Cup. This would give more influence over the process to the bigger nations which are most affected by FIFA's decisions, while still giving the smaller nations a reasonable voice at the table. So far example, a country like Argentina, which has played in 15 World Cups, would have 16 votes; the USA, which has played in 8 World Cups, 9 votes; and a country like Rwanda, which has never played in a World Cup, the one vote they started with.
Sounds good for countries like the USA with easy qualifying routes (especially long term.) Not so much for others. Even established nations like France and the Netherlands miss out on the WC every once in a while. Or take Egypt, a major power in Africa - not at the WC since 1990.
Well, the idea sounds pretty nice, but to avoid the diferences between getting an easy route towards the WC in regards to those who get a much harder one, maybe only those who have ever finished among the first 4 in any WC, get those aditional votes, as only the very best of the whole world in any given WC ever finish at top, maybe an aditional vote besides the one for being among the top 4, should be granted to whom has ended winning the WC, but in order to not produce such a huge gap between those who get aditional votes with those who don`t get any, there should be a limit or maximum of votes for top members, as well, say 5 maximum.
Do you really want to reward Bulgaria, Belgium, Poland, Austria, the USA and others for a "once upon a time" performance? IMO there is no truly fair way of assigning more influence, so the focus should be on ethics, code of conduct and punishment.
Pointless. There are no ethical people in FIFA and there never will be. It will always be ambitious, corruptible people that get these offices. The real solution is to create a system which will work, even if all the members inside are corrupted.
Show us this system you speak of. This system that is impervious to corruption. Not possible. Because systems are reliant on people. What you need is to ensure the people in your system are of utmost ethical character. And that is done by enforcing (and re-enforcing) the ethical laws/codes that govern them.
Just look at the US government. Filled with liars and cheats but somehow it just works. Not well, mind you, but better than FIFA.
And it's because of the stiff punishments officials face re bribes (and unethical behaviour in general). Same thing in Canada and Scandinavia.
When the next Fifa Congress convenes, they should play this song just before the Executive Committee enters to take their seats..... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3lkBmNVDrM&feature=related"]YouTube - Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection - "Send In The Clowns"‏[/ame]
Or the "doing something by doing nothing" approach, as it's otherwise known. We've seen this before, haven't we? Quite recently, in fact? Oh yeah - the banking industry. The only way for FIFA to reform itself is for everyone currently involved in running FIFA to be excluded from the process of devising and implementing the reforms. Is that going to happen? No. So we're left with mopes that declare themselves satisfied with "a focus on ethics". Even hearing those words come out of Blatter's mouth should make any normally functioning human being vomit. We're stuck with these fuckers until they all die of old age. Thankfully, that will be soon in the case of many of them, Blatter included.
Except that's a meaningless statement, since 'residents' of countries have absolutely no say in the running of their football associations anyway. Even if we were going to take it as read that FAs were the democratic representatives of their country's citizens, your statement still would be stupid because it implies a definition of 'democratic' that is so strict as to be impractical. By your definition the US is not democratic because of the Senate and the Electoral College. FIFA and the IOC and the UN are democratic in the sense that each composite entity has one vote. Practically speaking, that's as democratic as you're ever going to get.
The World Cup should be allocated to each of the major continents on a rotational basis. Then the individual confederations can have an internal process by which the actual hosting country is decided. That way, the sweatier corners of the globe can continue to bribe, lie and cheat their way through the process and those confederations with at least a passing interest in probity can conceive of more straightforward - goodness, perhaps even more transparent! - processes by which to allocate their own world cup turn amongst themselves. FIFA's revenues should be awarded to member states on the basis of a weighting that measures the UN's global economic indices against on-field performance and independently audited impact measures for all previous FIFA investment in any given country. Those who are most efficient and effective with their funding could be awarded extra weighting, thereby increasing their allocation of funds and rewarding excellence and innovation. The FIFA congress and Executive could then be disbanded as supefluous. All that would be required would be a body that coordinates rule changes and oversees the laws of the game. This should be placed somewhere near Duisburg, or Liege, or Bradford or Buttfuck, Alabama. Near a budget airline hub and with a cheap Motel within walking distance. Don't want to forget the practicalities. After all, it's all about the game, right? It's not like anyone actually needs the €700/day travel allowance, right? Messrs Warner, Grondona et al would happily forgo, I'm sure.
So what? The point is not necessarily to make sure that each individual country has the right amount of influence, but instead to make sure that in aggregate there is a balance between the power of small countries and large countries. Right now, the 140 or so countries which have never qualified for a World Cup control two-thirds of FIFA's voting power. Andorra has as much power as Argentina...Belize as much power as Brazil. That simply doesn't make sense. But that's how Blatter, and before him Havelange, keep themselves in power...by funnelling $$$ to small countries for whom the World Cup is an afterthought. Under my system, which as of today would have 601 votes (one per each of the 208 member nations plus 393 allocated though World Cup qualification history), the balance of power between big and small nations would be a bit more even. The giants of the game such as Brazil, Argentina, Germany, and Italy, would have about 3% of the overall votes each. The eight countries who have won the World Cup would have about the same voting power as the 140 or so who have never qualified (about 23% each). No longer would the big countries for whom the World Cup is a big deal be at the political mercy of the 140 or so countries for whom it is an afterthought.
This anachronism is pretty absurd...just as absurd as the voting power of the micronations. To me, the proper (i.e., completely unrealistic) approach is to tie together ending this and similar anachronisms WITH giving nations like England and Germany and Brazil more power within FIFA. But given that for half of the World Cup's history, African and Asian nations were all but excluded, that sets up an obvious problem. I think you're on the right track that making World Cups should be AN element of representation, but it shouldn't be THE element. I mean, does it really make sense going forward for Uruguay to have several times more sway than China? Not to mention how you allocate the appearances by the old Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, etc.
To me that is exactly the point. You seem to be under the assumption that all FIFA conflicts will always be large vs. small. What about large vs. large? Why should the USA have more say than Egypt?
Maybe I didn't explain myself well enough. I never said one person, one vote. It should be somewhere in the middle. I linked to the FIFA pages for a reason. Even if you only compare the number of registered players, or the number of teams, etc... The power disparity is ridiculous when comparing small associations to big ones. Whether you're talking small and big monetarily, population, participation, history, competitiveness. Why should a tiny nation benefit simply because it is tiny? What makes the association of Barbados so important that its say should be as strong as Spain, or Egypt, or China, or Uruguay?
Why is no one pointing out that having Americans involved in the investigation is a conflict of interests? If Hammam is found guilty of bribery, the Qatar WC is likely in jeopardy. Who is most likely to benefit from that, the USA. On top of that Kissinger was part of the US 2022 bid team. It's ridiculous. Blatter really has no idea about ethics does he? I dont want the World Cup given to the USA this way. I would have expected US soccer to point this out but I guess I'm being naive again.
Something I've been mulling over recently is that WC's should be allocated by the votes of the top 50 FIFA ranked countries at the beginning of the year when the vote is held. That way you still get a large selection of nations but you don't get dozens and dozens of useless bribe hungry minor nations that corrupt the system. If you don't like the fact that your country doesn't get a say then improve football in your nation and your national team and you'll have a say.
This investigation has nothing to do with the Qatar WC bid. The Qatar WC bid is not being investigated. There are calls for an investigation though, particularly by the German FA ExCo Member. But it would be a separate investigation, should they decide to investigate.
BSGuy, does the USA, particularly Kissenger, not have a vested interest in Bin Hammam being found guilty of bribery? The USA should be staying away from this investigation and just let things run their course.