The New York Times was tipped off about last weeks U.S. induced Swiss police raid on FIFA functionaries in Geneva. It seems to hold some grudge against the football association maybe because the U.S. lost its bid for the World Cup 2022 to Qatar.
It is obvious that the U.S. is trying to install its own puppet on top of FIFA. Their candidate is a member of the corrupt family of Jordanian king. It is not that the U.S. is against corruption. How would the situation be today if FIFA, like some huge banks, had given to the Clinton Foundation, Obama's presidential library or "lobbied" some Representatives and Senators? Corruption is just fine in the U.S. as long as it works in its interest. But FIFA rules make it difficult for the U.S. to get its will.
The reason, says the New York Times, is "the strange electoral math of FIFA".
So what is strange with that math?
The members of FIFA are the national football associations. Each gets one vote. The voting is secret.
Imagine that. Every member has an equal vote and can vote as it likes without any real way to pressure it. That's strange? From the NYT piece:
Mr. Blatter is widely expected to win a fifth term on Friday — in a vote only miles from the luxury hotel where Wednesday’s arrests took place — in part because of FIFA’s electoral math. The FIFA president is elected by a one-vote-per-country poll of its 209 member federations, making the many smaller countries who support Mr. Blatter an effective counterweight to his unpopularity elsewhere, most notably in Europe.
One country one vote is indeed strange math. Imagine the UN would be run this way. How would the U.S. and other Security Council members get their will if every country had a real vote?
There is no proposal in the NYT piece on how to change that strange math. How would the U.S. like to have the votes arranged? Countries ranked by population numbers? China, India, Nigeria, Brazil would certainly love that arrangement. But their votes would likely not go the way the U.S. wants them to go. Countries' votes ranked by local football popularity or historic football success? Portugal or some other small country might then have the greatest weight. The U.S. vote would rank somewhere at the very end of the list.
No. There is no better way to run FIFA than the way it is run today. A World Cup is a billion dollar business. The money collected by FIFA through TV licenses, advertisement and merchandizing is flowing back to the national soccer federations. They are supposed to use it to support and promote the sport. Unfortunately some corruption is inevitably involved in such a huge and complex business. The world will have to live with that. The alternative is to relinquish control over football to some totally unaccountable, likely U.S. controlled conglomerate. That would be the end of the game.
I suggested that the U.S. assault on FIFA for corruption cases going back to the early 1990s comes now because FIFA will today vote on a Palestinian proposal to eject Israel for impeding Palestinian football. Taking the 2018 World Cup from Russia is a convenient but secondary target. Israel has conceded that it is guilty of hindering Palestinian football by offering concessions in bid to avert vote to oust it from FIFA. But those concessions are likely not enough:
The source said FIFA president Sepp Blatter welcomed Israel’s proposal but stressed it would need [chairman of the Palestinian Football Association] Rajoub’s consent before removing the vote on banning Israel from FIFA’s slate.
The source said Rajoub acceded, but added another demand – that FIFA ask UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon to issue a decision within three months on whether the five Israeli teams based in West Bank settlements were within Israeli territory.
FIFA regulations stipulate that teams not located within Israeli territory require the Palestinians’ consent to participate in Israeli leagues. Since the UN does not recognize the West Bank as part of Israel, the decision would de facto force Israel’s soccer federation to expel these teams from the league or run the risk of breaking FIFA’s rules.
The Palestinians should stick to this demand. Israel, like apartheid South Africa, should be kicked out of FIFA. There must be no tolerance for racism and occupation in the world's most beloved sport.