Column: Blatter, FIFA ruining the beautiful game

Soccer may be the beautiful game, but FIFA, its governing organization, is the ugliest of the lot. FIFA is probably the most corrupt sporting organization in the world, and its president, Sepp Blatter, is an arrogant hack. The duplicitous leader of the world’s most popular sport has made so many public gaffes that he could easily be deposed on this premise alone. Speaking about women’s soccer, Blatter told the media that “women [should] play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” continuing to inexplicably state that if women played with a “more female aesthetic,” they might gain more international fans.

Don’t worry, Blatter is an equal-opportunity offender. When asked what gay fans should do if they want to see the 2022 World Cup in Qatar — homosexuality is outlawed in the Muslim country, with steep penalties for transgressors — Blatter told them to “refrain from any sexual activities” during the competition.

That’s right — the head of international soccer is sexist and homophobic. While Blatter quickly retreated from these positions after being confronted by reports, don’t believe the denials. Blatter stands firmly in the surprisingly long tradition of bigotry in international sports, a modern day Avery Brundage — the former president of the International Olympic Committee who equated the 1972 terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics with the exclusion of Rhodesian (now Zimbabwean) athletes due to their country’s racist policies.

Blatter’s presidency has been plagued with shady dealings since its beginning in 1998. Rumors abounded that a private jet from the Middle East containing one million dollars in cash secured Blatter’s initial election over his opponent, Lennart Johansson. When asked if he would start an official investigation into the election, Blatter shrugged off his interviewer: “Why should I? I cannot open an inquiry into myself,” he said. “The elections are now finished."

To top it all off, Blatter also attempted to ban a book, titled "How They Stole the Game," by David Yallop, that detailed the extravagant lifestyles led by many of FIFA’s higher-ups. Blatter’s 2002 election was marred by similar allegations of malfeasance, and in 2006 he laughably ran unopposed, though he was nominated by only 66 of 207 countries.

But FIFA’s problems run deeper than the Blatter infection. Its Executive Committee, the group of 24 who vote on which World Cup bid to select, appears quite double-dealing and even downright sleazy. Many have rightly wondered how Qatar could have been selected for the 2022 World Cup over the United States. It is a tiny, deeply conservative country, with an extremely hot climate that is not exactly accommodating to players.

Even before the election, stories of pay-to-play among FIFA’s Executive Committee abounded. Two members, Reynald Temarii of Tahiti and Amos Adamu of Nigeria, were banned from voting in the final round of the World Cup selection process due to convincing allegations that they had agreed to sell their votes to undercover investigative reporters from the British newspaper The Sunday Times.

Just this week, new revelations about the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups have improbably worsened FIFA’s already ruined image. First, the former head of England’s Football Association, Lord David Treisman, accused four FIFA Executive Committee members — Nicolas Leoz of Paraguay, Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil’s Ricardo Teixeira and Thailand’s Worawi Makudi — of requesting bribes in exchange for votes for England’s 2018 World Cup bid. According to Lord Treisman, Leoz asked for a knighthood from the British monarchy in exchange for his vote.

The same day Lord Treisman’s allegations became public, The Sunday Times published another article providing evidence that two other Executive Committee members, Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and the Ivory Coast’s Jacques Anouma, received $1.5 million to vote for Qatar over the United States.

This means that since August of last year, fully one third — eight out of 24 — of FIFA’s Executive Committee has been involved in some sort of corruption scandal. Three of those eight were vice presidents of the entire association. How can FIFA claim that the bidding process was anywhere close to fair when at least six members, discounting the two discovered before the election, were allegedly bribed during the voting process? It’s no surprise that when Sports Illustrated reporter Grant Wahl ’97 decided to run for FIFA president in the fall, he began to get calls from a mysterious man named “F.T. Garcia” who promised that he would put Wahl in contact with different soccer organizations across the globe. The seedy underbelly of FIFA can no longer be hidden.

Until recently, the International Olympic Committee was nearly as dirty as FIFA, but in the past 10 years, the IOC has made a move to clean up its act after the scandal surrounding Salt Lake City’s 2002 Olympic bid. In the wake of the scandal, which involved millions of dollars spent by Salt Lake City’s Organizing Committee to provide perks to the IOC, 10 members were expelled from the committee. Additionally, new rules were established in an attempt to prevent further bid bribery, and the IOC’s work was made more transparent. The IOC now consists of 115 members, 15 of which are current athletes — FIFA has no such clause — who now have term and age limits.

The IOC itself has spoken out about FIFA’s need to clean up its act. FIFA’s response? A typically bigoted Blatter remark: “Our accounts are open to everyone,” he said. “The IOC does it like a housewife. She receives some money and she spends some money."