MOST INTERNATIONAL BODIES are more or less corrupt. Whether it is the United Nations, the European Union, or the IOC and FIFA; the greater the level of an organisation’s unaccountability to the public, the more their members will be tempted by the possibility of a first class carriage on the gravy train.
Today the second in line to the throne, as well as our prime minister will both go crawling, cap in hand, to one such body – FIFA. They will be pleading on behalf of the FA for the 2018 World Cup to be staged in the UK; and such is the overwhelming hunger for such an event to be staged on our shores, that our future head of state and his prime minister are not only fully prepared to ignore the corrupt behaviour within this organisation, but also to condemn as ‘unpatriotic’ the BBC’s decision to show last night’s Panorama programme that sought to expose FIFA’s fraudulent practices.
It is a somewhat strange form of patriotism that allows itself to cohabit with such a body as FIFA, while condemning those who wish to expose its dishonesty in the national interest.
I am no friend of the BBC but it was right to show this programme when it did; and if our Great and Good wish to tarnish themselves and the office they hold by ignoring the scandal, and actively negotiate with such an organisation, then they should forfeit whatever public deference they may command.
THE UK should never have bid for the event in the first place knowing the kind of people they would be dealing with. FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, knows how addicted to the game are its millions of supporters; and as such he is all too aware of the power he wields over their governments when it comes to the World Cup. He sits Buddha-like orchestrating the bids and forcing governments to change their country’s laws to suit FIFA’s requirements.
It is surely a sign of decline into irrelevance when a country is willing to send, as part of its delegation, its prime minister to help negotiate, not with another government, but with the heads of a sporting body. Both FIFA and the IOC have become over powerful . They should have no more influence over politicians and princes than does the British Tiddlywinks Association. By pandering to such sporting bodies our politicians have devalued their office and elevated Mr Blatter’s.
No matter how popular it is, football is a sport and should be treated as such. It is now, sadly, common practice for our political leaders to involve their office, for populist reasons, in the sporting world.
It began, I believe, with Harold Wilson in 1966 when we won the World Cup. It was Wilson who began the political association with sport and sports people and it has flourished ever since. Today we even have a sports minister interfering in what should be left to the various sporting organisations to oversee .
Because all sport is popular our politicians want a piece of the action and are prepared to demean their office in pursuit of it. They are like Roman emperors courting popularity through the provision of the circus. Today’s rulers however, have turned themselves into Mr Blatter’s courtiers, hoping to receive the nod that will see them return in triumph to these shores.
As with the decline of the Roman Empire, superficiality has been elevated above all else in the Western society; thus we have had the rise of celebrity, football, and a particular favourite in this country, the rise of the chef. Where once we admired heroes who did great things on our country’s behalf, we are now inundated with countless food programmes which have given us the celebrity chef to fawn and fret over.
The picture presented to us, is one of decadence and decline. Our leaders pay homage to the trivial because to do so means clinging on to power. To be popular one must profess affection for and knowledge of all kinds of populist culture. Today, it is more important for a leader of this country to read Hello magazine than it is to have read Dickens or Trollop; or , for that matter, to have had a solid grounding in their country’s history.
For our prime minister and heir to the throne to supinely approach a corrupt sporting organisation and plead before its governing body for a sporting competition to take place on UK soil is humiliating to people he represents.
If leaders of other countries think so little of the offices they hold that they feel comfortable dealing with such people, then so be it. But for our leaders to ingratiate themselves with the FIFA family only reduces further their own reputations among the British people.
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