Read Heidi Blake's & Jonathan Calvert's 'The Ugly Game' and you could despair. But there is something lovers of the game can do...
If ever there was any doubt about the need for a wholesale systemic overhaul of FIFA, you would only need to read Heidi Blake’s and Jonathan Calvert’s The Ugly Game to be convinced.
Of course, the game itself isn’t ugly. It’s the machine that runs it that is very ugly indeed.
The fact that so many of us love the game is also the greatest asset of the relatively small number of people whose hands are on the levers of that machinery. When we’re presented with the wonderful spectacle of events such as the men’s and women’s World Cup, many fans and media feel almost disloyal if they try to divorce the game from the machinery behind it. Those at the very top of world football, and those who lurk around them, count on that.
“Oh yes, we know FIFA is corrupt but I do love the World Cup!” How many times have you heard that, or perhaps said it yourself?
The Ugly Game details alleged payments and incentives made to individuals masterminded by Mohamed Bin Hammam, who is the focus of the book. The money used appears largely to have been his own. In the authors’ view these payments were to secure the vote for Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. However, in reality, they are more likely payments made by Bin Hammam to help secure support for his 2011 Presidential election bid, especially as most of the people who Bin Hammam ‘assisted’ did not have a vote for 2018 and 2022. It also sets out alleged deals made by FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, to ensure that eventually he had the 2011 FIFA Presidential ballot all to himself.
But regardless of whether it was about Bin Hammam’s personal ambition or the 2022 bid, the issues raised are much deeper than that. It details an organisation and modus operandi that is mired in longstanding endemic corruption.
Blake and Calvert’s apparent source went to a lot of trouble to ensure the information detailed by them was made public. The two journalists describe how they were secreted in a ‘safe house’ office outside of London where their source had installed CCTVs and at all times controlled the computer systems they accessed to mine the data and evidence available. They also admit that the source had “grown oddly fond of them, and the feeling was mutual.”
Familiar names
As with all the bidding nations, Australia gets mentioned a few times – but mostly because of the intersection of Australia’s three international consultants with Bin Hammam, Blatter, Jack Warner and the Russian bid.
Blake and Calvert introduce us to Australia’s ‘chief strategist’, Peter Hargitay, as follows:
“Hargitay was a man who was steeped in the mire of FIFA like no other. The moustachioed Swiss-Hungarian lobbyist, spin doctor and fixer had worked for years as a special advisor to Sepp Blatter, and Bin Hammam had employed him in the past too. He was not picky about his clients …. Hargitay liked a challenge, and he had never met a rich and powerful man he didn’t admire. It was the perfect assignment ...
“By the turn of the millennium he had become a master of the dark art of ‘reputation management’, and he was looking for a new berth. Where better for a man with Hargitay’s many dubious talents than FIFA headquarters? He went to work as a spin doctor for Sepp Blatter, helping the president slither through corruption scandal after corruption scandal and come up smelling of roses every time. Hargitay had found his spiritual home in the murky world of football administration. The lobbyist operated in mysterious ways. He had an army of pet journalists under his spell, ready to attack his enemies or lionise his allies when he gave the word. He knew about how to spy on people, or smear them. He’d take your money to fix votes in an election or spin a disaster into a PR triumph. He was an invaluable asset to anyone trying to manoeuvre their way through FIFA’s back-corridors, so he would doubtless play a pivotal role in the World Cup bidding race. The whole business was sure to be flush with consultancy cash, and Hargitay was not one to miss such an opportunity.”
Peter Hargitay was paid AUD$1.45 million for his services to Australia.
Of another of Australia’s key strategists, Fedor Radmann, Blake and Calvert note:
“Radmann was a schmoozer, a smooth-talker in four languages, a man who lurked in the fancy hotels where collars were loosened and gossip flowed freely. He was a lobbyist in the politics of world football, and there was always a hefty fee for his ‘priceless’ knowledge and intelligence.”
Through Radmann’s friend and business partner, Andreas Abold, Radmann was paid AUD$3.63 million for his services to Australia.
The areas for which Abold was responsible - the Bid Book, the technical inspection and the final presentation for Australia (yes, that one with the cartoon surfing kangaroo) – cost a further AUD$10.07 million.
The Ugly Game suggests Bin Hammam recommended his friend Hargitay to FFA Chairman, Frank Lowy. If that is so, Bin Hammam was not alone because former FIFA ethics committee member, Les Murray, has also previously claimed that he introduced Lowy and Hargitay as early as 2004, and recommended him again when the England Bid and Hargitay parted ways in 2008. The Ugly Game also suggests Hargitay recommended Radmann and Abold, yet Lowy and Radmann would have met one another at AFC events as far back as 2004.
Did Australia go into the World Cup bidding process naively, or did Australia contrive to use these people for the entrée they offered to the FIFA world of double-dealing and murky ways? This book does not address that question about the Australian bid, or any other bid beyond Qatar. It is only focussed on Qatar.
What does this mean for FIFA?
FIFA will probably not respond to the The Ugly Game. They may well state that it is ‘hypothetical’ and blame the British media of which Blake and Calvert are part. As Blake and Calvert note, FIFA gets “more angry about the messenger than the message.”
FIFA may say – again - that they’re already ‘reforming’ the world body and that they’ve got rid of people such as Bin Hammam, Warner, Ricardo Teixeira, Nicolas Leoz and others.
However, even if we accept what Blatter, his friends and minions say – that he’s just one person on the Executive Committee and he’s not responsible for any of this – they can’t deny that he has been at the helm of FIFA as General Secretary (CEO) or President for 34 years. At best, therefore, Blatter is the most ineffective organisational leader in the world, as all of this has taken place for so long right under his nose. At worst, FIFA reflects the leadership it has.
With five sponsors having recently not renewed their partnership with FIFA, the revelations in The Ugly Game may prompt remaining sponsors to reconsider their continuing association with the organisation.
What does it mean for football fans?
First, ask FFA who they’re voting for in the FIFA Presidential election at the end of May. In this article in The Saturday Paper, Matthew Hall revealed that the FFA Board is meeting next month to decide this. But it’s our game too; FFA is no more the ‘owner’ of the game than FIFA is so it’s our right to say who we want them to vote for. Email them at:
(And, by the way, if you think Prince Ali may be your man, be aware that while he has advocated some reform in recent months, Blake and Calvert confirm that he was also “an avowed Blatterite whose campaign [in 2011] had benefited from the firm backing of the FIFA president.”)
Second, don’t just sit on the sidelines, wring your hands, and say anymore “Oh yes, we know FIFA is corrupt but I do love the World Cup!” Help those who are willing to go out on a limb, do so.
Support #NewFIFANow: the coalition of Members of Parliament, commercial interests, fans, media and others advocating for the establishment of a FIFA Reform Commission that is an interim time-limited administration led by an eminent person, with a broad mandate to review and develop the Constitution, Statutes, Codes and operational policies and practices; to develop and implement new governance arrangements including governance-related committees; and to conduct elections for an Executive Committee including a new President.
Yes, this is big stuff.
No, it won’t happen overnight; probably not this year; or maybe even next year or even the year after.
When a similar small group of reformists first met with Frank Lowy on 12 June 2001, it took two years, much more knocking on doors and letter-writing, and eventual Prime Ministerial intervention until 11 July 2003 when Lowy was eventually elected to the top role in Australia. That first meeting with Lowy comprised an unlikely group of Robbie Slater, Neal Jameson, Greg Woods, Jesse Fink and me. There were others involved in the group who did not attend the meeting who include prominent football writers, an FFA senior executive, a former player who has held a variety of roles within the game and still does, and a medical specialist.
The point is – FIFA reform will happen. As #NewFIFANow advocates say (of whom I am one), it was never a question of if the Berlin Wall would come down but how and when.
Heidi Blake’s and Jonathan Calvert’s The Ugly Game is a long read but to the uninitiated, the extent of the corruption and deals, counter-deals and double-deals will floor you. Unfortunately, having been exposed to the ‘FIFA Way’, it was no surprise to me.
Other email addresses relevant to Australia as the official ‘members’ of FFA.
Australian A-League clubs