FIFA’s reputation has been plummeting since last year’s vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts and on Friday it was sent into a tailspin with news that president Sepp Blatter is facing an ethics inquiry.
Whatever happens today when Blatter and his election rival Mohamed bin Hammam are hauled in to answer questions, the fact that the only candidates for the top job in world soccer are under investigation just days before the poll is little short of a PR catastrophe for the battered governing body.
Blatter and Bin Hammam — once close allies and now seemingly intractable foes — will be joined in front of the FIFA ethics committee by Jack Warner, the controversial president of the CONCACAF confederation, which covers the north and central American countries and the Caribbean.
Warner and bin Hammam were named in a report by Warner’s secretary general Chuck Blazer -concerning ethical violations, possibly including bribery, at a meeting this month.
Bin Hammam said Blatter should give evidence to the ethics committee as well because, he said, the FIFA president may have known about cash payments being made to delegates at the meeting and failed to disclose the information.
Blatter has repeatedly stressed that FIFA is not corrupt and last weekend at a news conference in South Africa he slammed his fist on the table as he made his point.
It will take more than gestures now to repair the damage to FIFA’s image, which many have likened to the crisis the International Olympic Committee (IOC) responded to so effectively following the Salt Lake City scandal.
Image and perception counts a great deal for FIFA, whose ability to develop and run soccer around the world depends enormously on being able to attract massive global sponsorship and TV deals in return for broadcasting and marketing rights.
“It makes me think of the IOC situation,” said Darin David, a Dallas-based director in sports marketing and sponsorship at US company The Marketing Arm. “With the incredible sponsorship dollars that FIFA attracts you certainly, as a company, don’t want that going towards something where the integrity is in question or you are not sure if you can trust the people.”
“They receive tremendous income from sponsors. I am sure they will move quickly to try to clean up and do some damage control. If it’s isolated individuals they will deal with it. If it is something more systemic they will make changes and they will be in touch with sponsors. If they are not in touch with sponsors, the sponsors will certainly be in touch with them,” David said.
For some observers, perhaps, Blatter’s appearance in front of the committee will show FIFA is indeed making some progress, -demonstrating that not even its most senior official is above the rules.
Few people who have followed FIFA politics will have much sympathy for that view, especially as allegations about corruption have now been publicly made against 10 of the powerful 24-man FIFA executive committee.
Last year, two executive committee members were suspended in another bribes-for-votes scandal in the lead-up to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup decision, held on the same day in Zurich in December last year.
Blatter’s decision to hold the two votes together was made “to maximize commercial possibilities,” as he has told reporters.
The result was a campaign that produced a crisis at FIFA that has endured for the last six months.
After being told he must now attend the ethics hearing today, Blatter issued a statement saying: “The facts will speak for themselves.”
Some people believe they already do.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but