Lessons for the sporting world from the FIFA fiasco

Six officials of FIFA, the moneyed and therefore hugely powerful world body that administers football, were arrested by the Swiss Police in the early hours of May 27 from a Zurich hotel. They had assembled there to hold their meeting to elect a President, the most influential football official in the world with alluring perquisites. The current President Sepp Blatter of Switzerland was to seek a whopping fifth term. A member of the Royal family of Jordan, Prince Ali Hussein was to challenge his re-election. 

The arrested officials are expected to be charged for a wide spectrum of offences, including corruption, wire fraud and money laundering. The FBI is likely to seek their extradition to the US because it was already investigating offences committed in that country for many years. 

As at present President Blatter was not one of those arrested by the Swiss Police. Whether he will remain unaffected by the investigation is anybody’s guess. Since he was himself a controversial figure and had many enemies who had alleged he was part of the group that had exploited FIFA, it is just possible, in course of time, the FBI’s arm could reach for him. 

The FBI action against FIFA does not come as a surprise to many who have been following the sport and its administration the world over. FIFA had looked suspect for long, because of the enormous clout it enjoyed in doling out favours and freebies. It was widely believed that each member of the 24-member executive was a target for those seeking to earn big money from the award of contracts by FIFA. 

The award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was a major controversy due to the fact that that country did not have a track record for football prowess and for hosting major football games. Also, it was alleged, that the summer heat of Qatar was a factor which was deliberately ignored while the tournament was given to that country. The charge that was flying around was that each member of the FIFA executive committee had been taken care of to influence voting in favour of Qatar.

The latest FIFA developments reemphasise what is already known, that sports the world over are greatly vulnerable to money power, and that whatever legislation you bring in, sports administrators will circumvent it to enrich themselves and those who are close to them. Events surrounding the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are a near parallel to FIFA happenings. The match fixing controversy and the police action that followed both in Delhi and Mumbai is a sad chapter in the history of the game in India. This was a repeat of what happened in the late 1990s leading to a CBI investigation and the ban imposed on a former Test captain and some players.

If such an episode could happen twice within two decades, it is a signal that the game needs to be closely monitored by law enforcement agencies.

What football and cricket lovers who constitute the bulk of those who pay to watch the two sports want is a clean game, where it is skill and chance on the field alone that count, and not manipulation by external elements, mainly from the underworld. It is not for nothing that there is the fear that the Mumbai gangs, resident and non-resident, are mixed up in cricket to influence the outcome of important matches, and there is very little that can be done to keep them at bay. While the speculation cannot be proved, undoubtedly, we need to do everything possible to sequester cricketers from being weaned away by undesirable moneybags.

It must be said to the credit of the BCCI however that it has done all that is humanly possible to guard players from being influenced by organised betting. Those who criticise either the Board or its anti-corruption wing (now headed by former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar) for slackness or complicity are talking through their hats. They forget the fact that any monitoring of a player’s conduct can be limited only to play days, or during days immediately preceding or following a match. It is impractical as also unfair to subject a suspect player to surveillance right through his playing years. If cricket administration is reduced to a crude police operation, few gifted players will take to the game. 

Let us have a sense of balance. We can instill in the minds of our players a respect for ethics through persuasive counsellors. We cannot do anything more without robbing the game of its age-old charm.

The writer is a former CBI Director