The Day Football Died?

As I think has been widely - if incorrectly - reported last Wednesday (27/5/15) the US Department of Justice (DoJ) confirmed that soccer's Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Associations Football (CONCACAF) is massively corrupt.

For example their President Jack Warner is on record demanding that USD10million that should have been used to develop the game in South Africa instead be paid to him as a bribe. This is despite there being a general consensus within the game that 2010 was the year for the World Cup to be held for the first time on the continent where roughly 1/3rd of football fans live.

Then of course there is the US sportswear giant Nike. Due to their extensive use of child labour and sweatshops that has seen them at the forefront of Obama's "Pivot Towards the Pacific" and the lifting of sanctions on Burma and the associated Rohingya migrant crisis Nike have long been locked out of the FIFA family. Instead access to the eyes of roughly 3.5 billion fans has been granted to the much more ethical Adidas. The DoJ have helpfully detailed both Nike's frustration at this effective ban and their attempts to bribe their way around it.

As such I thought the obvious response to the DoJ's dawn raids would be for CONCACAF to be immediately suspended from all FIFA activities until the situation was resolved. It would then be up to the Central American and Caribbean nations to decide - on a case by case basis - whether they wished to remain within the federation or sign up with CONMEBOL - the South American federation.

In the meantime the suspension would mean that Canada would be unable to participate in the upcoming Womens World Cup that they are hosting. Team USA would also be unable to participate in a competition that they clearly value more then the mens alternative.

If the US then wanted to spend the time explaining in more detail why they are deemed unfit to participate they would be welcome to do so. Alternatively they could save up all their explanations for when they vote against a resolution to strip Qatar of the 2022 Mens World Cup.

Unfortunately FIFA's 79 year old President Sepp Blatter seems to be going soft in his old age so today resigned despite only being re-elected to the role last Friday (29/5/15). I get the impression of a man who is done fielding the slings and arrows of morons.

I am though deeply worried about the future of the game. After all the English FA seem to think that a Cup Final is something that can be decided by an "X-Factor" style phone vote. As such there is a very real danger that football will become just another highly choreographed affair like the Superbowl, the Olympics or Eurovision where nobody cares who's awarded victory provided the ruling elite get to have a jolly good discussion and the sponsors get to shift a lot of units.

19:40 on 2/6/15 (UK date).