Here are a few preliminary thoughts on the reform proposals approved yesterday by FIFA’s Executive Committee.
1. Jérôme Valcke can breathe again.
The third of the 10 points indicates that the ExCo has headed off a proposal put forward recently by the 53 European FIFA member associations that could, I think, have excluded FIFA’s general secretary from running for the FIFA Presidency.
Whereas the European version would have required Presidential candidates to have an “active office” within their own national association or confederation, the wording that now looks like heading to Congress is less restrictive.
It requires candidates to be supported by at least five member associations and to have played an active role in “association football” for two of the last five years before being proposed.
I cannot put hand on heart and say Valcke will definitely run to succeed FIFA’s veteran leader Joseph Blatter in 2015. But he is viewed by some as a possible opponent to his French countryman, Michel Platini, the UEFA President, who is almost universally expected to run.
2. The gaping holes where proposals on “term of office” and “age limit” should be leave me pessimistic that this year’s Congress will succeed in voting through any change to the FIFA statutes on these subjects – particularly the latter.
If the 77-year-old Blatter wishes to retain the option of running for yet another term as President, something he seems disinclined to rule out at the moment, even if this stance could turn out ultimately to be a negotiating tactic, he is almost certainly dependent on no age ceiling being imposed.
There is still time, of course, for negotiations to resolve these issues.
But with the support of three-quarters of present and eligible member-associations required for statute amendments to be adopted – giving UEFA, in effect, a blocking minority if European member associations retain the discipline to vote as a bloc – I cannot help feeling it is at least as likely that the status quo may prevail.
3. I have always been sceptical about FIFA’s capacity to come up with a better way of choosing where future World Cups will be played.
And indeed I fear they might be in the process of adopting a system that makes matters worse.
The present proposal is for Congress to “take the decision on the venue for the final competition of the FIFA World Cup based on a shortlist consisting of up to three bids submitted by the FIFA Executive Committee”.
I can immediately think of two ways in which this might go wrong.
The Executive Committee could, by the look of it, submit a shortlist of one, hence reducing the role of Congress to that of a rubber-stamp.
What is more, it seems to me that the proposed new process might actually make the lobbying worse.
Executive committee members might be subject to it, much as before, so as to persuade them to put particular bids on their shortlist.
There might then follow a second phase of lobbying in which the national associations gearing up to take the critical decision in Congress would be targeted.
A satisfactory process depends more, or so it has always seemed to me, on the attitudes of the decision-takers than the precise rules and regulations put in place to govern it.
On a subsidiary point, the wording of this proposal with its stipulation that “the right to host the event shall not be awarded to members of the same confederation for two consecutive editions” seems distinctly unhelpful to any aspiration that China might have of hosting the 2026 World Cup.
I had long assumed that the 2026 tournament was China’s for the taking if it decided it wanted to bid.
My faith in this regard has started to be shaken; the centenary World Cup in 2030 maybe? – although I fancy Argentina and Uruguay might have a word or two to say about that.
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, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938