01 March 2015
The decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was just one decision with many consequences. Football fans can help make it one that counts
There are a few matters worth highlighting arising from the recommendation announced this week that the 2022 World Cup be moved to November/December, rather than June/July.
Support
The move is technically a recommendation of a taskforce chaired by the AFC President, Sheikh Salman which will be approved by FIFA’s Executive Committee in March. UEFA, CAF and CONCACAF have already publicly supported the move. Together with AFC, that’s 18 votes, including the three women members and excluding Sepp Blatter.
Presidential candidate Luis Figo has also supported it on the basis of player safety.
Compensation
You may recall the reporting from some Australian media outlets around September 2013 that FFA would be claiming compensation if such a switch happened.
FFA has made no comment, which is not surprising. Despite the song-and-dance eagerly copied down by local reporters 18 months ago, a claim for compensation was never going to be. Why? Simply because the Bidding Guidelines – which FFA had lawyers pore over – gave FIFA sufficient wriggle room to make any changes they wished affecting any part of the Bid during the Bidding process, and after the decision was made.
There is not likely to be anyone with deep enough pockets to match a potential legal case against FIFA on this issue – a point made by FIFA’s CEO Jerome Valcke, who has already said compensation is out of the question.
This time around, Karl-Heinze Rummenigge on behalf of the European Clubs’ Association and Richard Scudamore of the EPL have called for compensation for unspecified costs of disruption for an event that is more than seven years away. Both are careful not to disagree with the decision to move the tournament. Rummenigge said:
“Today's recommendation of the Task Force regarding the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar does not come as a surprise; it was rather expected.”
However, FIFA’s emphatic ‘no’ to compensation on a legal basis doesn’t mean they may not make an ex gratis compensatory payment to leagues as a peacemaking gesture – perhaps bankrolled by Qatar.
Release of players
There is also little wriggle room for leagues that say they won’t release players. Scudamore, Rummenigge, the A-League, the J-League, MLS and others playing in November/December may huff-and-puff on this issue, but the regulations governing player transfers fairly much wrap that up in FIFA’s favour to ensure the integrity of their major competition.
The ultimate say goes to the Players’ Status Committee of FIFA who can decree that a player be banned from playing for the duration of the World Cup, and that clubs may be fined and/or have games forfeited (or all of the above). The Players’ Status Committee includes FIFA Executive Committee members Theo Zwanziger and Sunil Gulati as its chair and deputy chair, as well as player representatives such as Brendan Schwab from Australia.
Faced with the options, would Chelsea fans, for example, rather have all their international players banned from playing for 6-8 weeks and points forfeited while they continue with the EPL? Or would clubs, players and fans prefer the radical option of walking away from the World Cup altogether by disassociating from FIFA? Or accept that season 2022-23 will have a break in the competition as a one-off?
US television rights
In the same week that the EPL announced a 70% increase in their television rights via SKY and BT, FIFA quietly announced that the rights for the 2026 World Cup had been awarded to FOX in the US, without a competitive process, and at an increase of only 10% over the 2018 and 2022 rights. That is regardless of where the 2026 World Cup is held (many are tipping the USA although it is also just as likely to be Europe).
Valcke has admitted that this cosy little deal happened because the decision to move the 2022 tournament means that FOX USA has to juggle its coverage of both the World Cup and the domestic behemoth gridiron season.
“We have done what we had to do in order to protect FIFA and the organisation of the World Cup,” Valcke told the media in Doha on Wednesday.
In other words, FIFA forfeited bucket loads of money to appease FOX and to avoid a law suit in the USA that could lead to all sorts of discovery over finances, and is one of the last places on earth where FIFA and its executives would want to appear in Court.
Perhaps also on FIFA’s mind is the investigation by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service into CONCACAF operations reported by the New York Daily News and Bloomberg. With former Executive Committee member, Chuck Blazer, as a cooperating witness – a man who knows everything – this probe must be a huge risk for FIFA, and is one over which they have no control, unlike their own funded investigation conducted by Michael Garcia.
Ironically also, FOX shares the same ownership as The Sunday Times that has been handed 200,001 pages of documents related to the 2022 bidding process, by a generous source. Jonathan Calvert’s and Heidi Blake’s book based on these documents, The Ugly Game, will be published next month. Make of this what you will.
2023 Asian Cup
Finally, there’s the 2023 Asian Cup.
On normal timetabling, this would be held in January 2023. But a November/December World Cup makes this impossible. Valcke announced on Tuesday that the African Cup of Nations will move to June/July 2023 rather than the customary January.
The AFC has a dilemma.
If they follow CAF’s lead and move the 2023 Asian Cup to June/July, they effectively rule out hosting bids from most of west Asia because of the same climate conditions that forced the move of the 2022 World Cup. Or, if they decide to move the 2023 Asian Cup to November/December to accommodate west Asian bidders, that’s a second consecutive year of disruption to most domestic leagues in the AFC, including the A-League.
(Both Iran and the UAE remain in the race to host the 2019 Asian Cup with a decision due by AFC in June).
Conclusion
All of this could have been avoided if FIFA had been guided by its own selection criteria for the bids and specifically its own technical report overseen by former Chile FA President, Harold Mayne-Nicholls, and financial report prepared by McKinsey.
Instead, the outcome of both 2018 and 2022 were subject to the dealing, double dealing, counter dealing and subterranean behaviour that characterises most of FIFA’s decision-making and to which I referred in my presentation in Brussels at the first meeting of the #NewFIFANow campaign coalition.
It is FIFA’s long history of taking decisions in this manner, rather than on the basis of evidence and merit, that saw both Harold and I share a platform in Brussels in January at this meeting.
The simple fact is: if we want FIFA to continue as it is, we sit by, do nothing and say nothing.
If we think FIFA can change “from within” – as those who wear the blue blazer and their friends will often attest – then, quite frankly, pigs are flying as you read this.
But if we want to have a tilt at change; if we believe in democracy, transparency and accountability in sport – as we demand of our other institutions – then the platform of #NewFIFANow is something to be embraced, supported and advocated.
That one decision in December 2010 has had many consequences.
Be part of making it one that makes a difference. Sign-up now and help #NewFIFANow achieve transformative, generational change.
