(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Of: Tor Dølvik
This week the Norwegian men's soccer team plays the two most crucial matches in several years. It's about the playoff against Hungary? the playoffs to qualify for next year's European Football Championships in France. With victory, enthusiasm will take off: "We're in for the first time in 16 years!"
The championship next year will engage millions of Europeans. During the last European Football Championship, I ended up with half a million people in the center of Berlin, and followed a decisive battle between Germany and Denmark on a big screen. It was about victory and loss in football. The frame was party and brotherhood in tolerance.
But football is also about conflict, politics, power, money? and corruption.
Scandal. The European Football Championship is organized by the European Football Association UEFA, which is again part of the international association FIFA. When the European Championship was last held in France (1984), Michel Platini was captain of the French national team. He scored nine goals and was the championship's greatest profile. France won the championship at home. Since then, Platini has made a career in football politics. He joined the FIFA Executive Committee in 2002 and has been President of UEFA since 2007. He is now one of eight candidates vying to become president of FIFA at the extraordinary congress in February next year. But this fall, he was suspended from all football for 90 days for receiving irregular payments of NOK 17,5 million by the scandalized FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
The FIFA scandal has exposed top-level corruption in one of the world's largest and most influential organizations. President Blatter has been suspended from office and from all football activity while being investigated for corruption, as are a number of top football federations in other parts of the world. Most people now realize that replacing top management in FIFA is not enough. The mismanagement is not only due to the fact that individuals have misused their position for their own gain. The culture and corruption have grown because the organization does not have strong mechanisms to ensure democratic control over power, cash flows and decision-making processes. In this sense, the FIFA scandal has common features with other corruption: Weak institutions lead to bad governance, which in turn maintains oppressive power structures and weakens people's basic human rights. Economic power relations that create inequality and poverty are maintained.
FIFA's power is so great that it can require a World Cup host country to change its laws.
Get away. The FIFA scandal also illustrates the devastating consequences of corruption. The allotment of the World Cup to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 were, after all the sun marks, the result of a corrupt decision-making process where votes were bought and paid. Low-income immigrants to Qatar are now putting their lives at stake, where basic demands for pay, working environment and safety are set aside to complete facilities for the World Cup. The workers have also been deprived of freedom of travel, freedom of contract, freedom of organization and freedom of expression. FIFA has done little to make demands on Qatar's authorities on working conditions and human rights.
Paradoxically, FIFA is a non-profit organization that has generated revenues of around NOK 44 billion over the past four years. The power of the organization is so great that it can require the World Cup host country to change its laws, as it did to Russia before the 2018 World Cup and did to Brazil before the World Cup in 2014. If FIFA had been a multinational company, the organization would have had to be accountable to its shareholders. But in practice, FIFA and the executive committee are not held accountable to anyone but themselves. The organization is not subject to legal supervision, control and compliance requirements in the same way as businesses of similar size.
Basic changes. The demands for reform now come from many teams. The Football Association of Norway together with the Nordic federations will invite all candidates for the FIFA presidential office to a questioning. FIFA's main sponsors demand reform. At the end of October, Transparency International (TI) addressed all national football associations in the world, with a call to support candidates who pledge to work for reform.
This summer, TI launched a proposal for a reform process, based on the principles of transparency and accountability. TI called for an independent reform commission to propose new laws, open electoral processes, limited electoral terms and clear democratic anchoring of FIFA's executive bodies with national federations and regional confederations. Transparency about FIFA's cash flows and independent audit is necessary to be able to control whether the money goes to its intended purpose. Information on FIFA representatives' fees and other financial interests must be openly available.
The experience of other scandalized organizations has shown that such reforms can lead to responsible governance. But then the demands must be strong and the power behind the demands must be mobilized in unison. The question now is whether any of the candidates for the position of FIFA President with credibility can be at the forefront of such a change. If not, the core of the football game – players, teams and supporters – will be able to turn their backs on the international football organization. It would have been a revolution that would also change the basis for holding such championships as next year's European Championships and last year's World Cup. We can stand in front of more than this week's European Championship playoff. February 2016 could be the playoff for FIFA.
Dølvik is a special advisor in Transparency
International Norway. dolvik@transparency.no.
