.jpg)
It would have been hard for the candidates in FIFA’s Presidential election to avoid the subject of World Cup vote reform.
And in fairness to Joseph Blatter, his latest proposals came as a direct response to an interviewer’s question.
Nonetheless, several points need to be made about the FIFA President’s “positive solution” for preventing a repetition of the “uncomfortable experience I had here in Zurich on 2 December”.
Point Number One is that, no matter how fresh the, er, imperfections of the 2018/2022 host selection process may be in our minds, this is in no way a burning issue.
Barring the unexpected, the next World Cup host – for 2026 – will not be chosen until 2018.
That leaves seven whole years for a calm, rational analysis of what needs to be done.
If ill-thought-out reforms are enacted in haste as a result of this election, it will be the next FIFA President but one who reaps the whirlwind.
That ought to give food for thought to Michel Platini, to name but one possible FIFA supremo for the 2015-19 Presidential term.
Point Number Two is that it is by no means automatic that simply expanding the electorate from the 24 members of FIFA’s Executive Committee to its 208 national associations will make any meaningful difference to the process’s underlying dynamics.
To give one example: it has been reported that CONCACAF, the Confederation for Caribbean, North and Central American nations, will vote as a bloc in this Presidential election, as it appears to have done in the contests for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts.
If it adopted the same tactic in a Congress-wide election for the 2026 World Cup host, 35 out of 208 votes would be heading in the same direction.
That’s actually a marginally BIGGER proportion than the three out of 22 ExCo votes CONCACAF accounted for at the time of the 2018-22 votes.
For an election process to be beyond reproach, the mindset of those wielding the votes is far more important than procedural niceties.
If, come 2018, each member of the electorate casts his – or her – vote in good faith for the country he – or she – genuinely believes would put on the best 2026 World Cup, or at least for the host that would have the most positive impact on the sport’s future development, then the process will be sound – irrespective of whether it is the ExCo, the Congress, or some hybrid body voting.
Yes, it is probably legitimate for voters to bear in mind – as a secondary consideration – which host country would bring the most significant knock-on benefit for their national association.
But if the question of what most benefits the voter himself becomes part of the equation in any way, shape or form, then the outcome becomes dubious.
It is this question of making sure the electorate approaches each vote in the right spirit that makes it so important, in my view, for FIFA to mimic the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in a way that Blatter didn’t specifically mention.
At present, ExCo members whose countries bid for the right to stage a World Cup retain their votes, even though it is simply inconceivable that they would not back their own horse.
To me, this sends out all the wrong signals and should be discontinued at once, whether the voting forum remains the ExCo or is switched to the Congress or another body.
IOC members, of course, are excluded from voting while any city from their country of origin remains in the running.
This leads onto Point Number Three, which is that the IOC and the FIFA Congress are not, absolutely like-for-like bodies.
The IOC is not simply an assembly of national Olympic associations with each member-country having one vote.
It is a body composed of individuals who have attained some degree of prominence in the Olympic world and who have been voted into the club by existing IOC members.
Many members, indeed, are not appointed primarily to represent their national Olympic associations.
Some, including Blatter, are there as a result of being head of an Olympic sport.
Others represent some other interest group, such as athletes.
This helps to explain why you can have several IOC members of the same nationality, just as many countries have no IOC member at all.
Finally, Point Number Four is that if you deem a particular process the best way of deciding where your flagship tournament is played, then surely you should adopt the same methodology for determining the host of your other competitions.
FIFA has so many of these nowadays that it could find itself needing to summon three or four Congresses a year.
I can understand, in short, why it is tempting to try to clothe FIFA in the IOC’s – relatively new-found – cloak of respectability.
But if that’s what it takes to manufacture a more satisfactory host-selection process, I believe I have an even better idea than that floated by the FIFA President: why not go the whole hog and let the IOC decide where the World Cup is played?
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938