NEWS: The Sunday Column

Paul Schmidt-Troschke on the urgent need for reform at football's world governing body.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this week's World Cup, etc. Sunday column with me, Paul Schmetroschke. It seems to be that FIFA cannot help itself but produce an increasing amount of bad publicity towards the start of its biggest event ever. In this week's column, I will make a case for a complete overhaul of the continental and the world governing bodies of football, not out of spite, but as the only logical consequence to prevent a looming catastrophe. Think back about 20 years and remember the former king of world football himself, his Majesty Zepp Blutter, and how much disdain you felt for him while he was ruling over his FIFA kingdom for 18 years eventually. Back then, nobody in their right mind would have guessed that Blutter would become a rather respected voice nowadays by sharply criticizing his successor to the throne and the whole institution of FIFA itself. Important to note here is that Blutter only decided to step down due to a growing number of especially corruption scandals in which he did not see a way out for himself. In a recent radio interview, he once again unleashed on FIFA President Johnny Infantino and US President Donald Trump after already having called publicly for a worldwide boycott of the FIFA World Cup 2026. He started by saying that quote, this World Cup is running, we have to say it, it is being run by the President of the United States. He has taken over this World Cup. The FIFA President was very happy to have a counterpart with him, end quote. This claim is not at all controversial, as the world could watch the bromance between Infantino and Trump develop out in the open, for example, with Infantino allowing Trump to touch the World Cup trophy because, quote, it is only for winners only, end quote. Blutter especially criticizes FIFA and the US President for disregarding the sport's importance, saying that, quote, so far in the last year we do not speak about football there. We speak about immigration, we speak about politics, we speak about even war. And this is not the right companion of a World Cup. End quote. He added that the focus should traditionally be on the sport itself in the lead up to the kickoff. Quote, when you organize a World Cup even now in three countries, then one year before, two years before, you speak about football and not about all the problems that people will face, end quote. To have Blutter stating these things publicly is a sign that things move into the right direction from a fan perspective, but the core issue is being completely ignored. Because on principle, Johnny Infantino did not do anything different to his predecessor. He formed FIFA as he wished in his own image. And while Blutter was arguably less corrupt, he still was very corrupt and did not implement structural reforms to signal a shift in practices. And news like the following hint at the rotten core of global football, with Alejandro Dominguez, president of Connebol, formally requesting Johnny Infantino to consider a new candidacy to lead FIFA after the close of his current administration in 2027. The fans, however, the only reason why all these organizations, lucrative TV contracts, hundred million player transfers, etc., exist and de facto hold zero control over anything. We cannot allow ourselves to be satisfied with a problem analysis which only skims the surface. And while the points raised by Blutter are all in fact valid, the structural problems leading to these symptoms are deeply embedded in the system. Right now a new term is being coined in the opposition to the Trump administration and the dissatisfaction with the Epstein files investigation, the so-called Epstein class, describing a group of extremely wealthy and well-connected individuals acting with impunity, not out of their inherent evil intentions, but due to the absence of any forced accountability. Blutter acted like that, and Infantino is just following his logic. Only if we as fans from all over the world organize ourselves and unite around our common interests, for example, affordable World Cup tickets, we can build leverage and use it to our own advantage. One side did that all along, and the other stopped doing that, thereby making it laughably easy for the other interest groups to further their own agendas. One last fun fact the longest reign of a FIFA president was 33 years, achieved by Jules Rimet between 1921 and 1954, leaving Zed Blatter with only the bronze medal with his 18 years. Sounds more like a FIFA dictatorship than a presidency to me. The novel concept of term limits might be an appropriate measure to start a restructuring of the world governing body of football with and there is only one consistent motto to end this week's rant on FIFA. Football fans of the world. So that's it from us for today.

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