Bagehot's notebook

British politics

The British and corruption

England ponders its isolation in world football

Jun 2nd 2011, 11:33 by Bagehot

THE BRITISH press has reacted with indignation but also much soul-searching this morning, after the Football Association (FA) of England failed wretchedly in its bid to postpone the coronation of Joseph Blatter as president of the international football body FIFA for a fourth term.

It would have been easy for the English to take a purely jingoistic line, and accuse mucky foreigners of backing a corrupt international body, because, well, that is just how foreigners are. There was a bit of that. The Sun praised the FA for a "principled stand", after the English motion to postpone the ballot—in which Mr Blatter stood unopposed—failed by 172 votes to 17 (or arguably 16, following press reports that one of England's allies, Vietnam, had voted for postponement by mistake). Other national associations had behaved "disgracefully", said the Sun.

But elsewhere, the press has been pondering just how the FA had ended up so isolated—especially when some important countries, such as Germany, appear to be deeply unhappy about allegations of corruption swirling around the process that awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, but did not side with England over the presidential ballot.

The English papers come up with a list of reasons why England looks so lonely in world football:

• Arrogance. Perceptions of English arrogance help explain why the powerful European football federation, UEFA, failed to back the FA, suggests Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph, accusing English football chiefs of failing to build relationships with foreign counterparts. Mr Winter notes that the Frenchman who heads UEFA, Michel Platini, especially dislikes the English Premier League and the astonishing financial power its clubs wield, in part through business plans built on mountains of debt.

• Sour grapes. The English papers report the widespread impression that England is still smarting from its failure to secure the 2018 World Cup, a humiliating affair that saw just two delegates vote for the English bid. The English papers are right there.

The French news agency, AFP, suggested that: "The stream of already virulent criticism of FIFA from England redoubled after the country failed to secure the right to host the World Cup in 2018."

Le Monde, the French daily, added a further twist, linking the FA's move against Mr Blatter to the FIFA boss's decision to ignore an FA-commissioned report probing allegations of corruption against FIFA delegates (and adding Australia, another disappointed would-be World Cup host, to the sour grapes list). In Le Monde's view, the English-led bid to postpone the presidential vote had no chance of success, and was:

...More like a small act of revenge, because Blatter, the night before, had decided no follow-up was needed to a British parliamentary report [sic] into the circumstances surrounding the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Another disappointed candidate, Australia, also spoke up, calling for a "thorough reform from top to bottom" of FIFA

If anything, the Spanish member of FIFA's executive committee, Angel María Villar Llona, was harsher still, declaring:

The problems of some comments in the paper came from some people who may have lost in the World Cup elections. They associated us with crimes we have not committed, they insult, they attack our freedom. It's enough.

• Historic privileges. Several papers noted that one of England's harshest critics, the Argentinian senior vice-president of FIFA, Julio Grondona, explicitly grumbled about the fact that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland [corrected, see comment below] all enjoy separate membership of FIFA, and between them enjoy a permanent right to one of the body's vice-presidential slots.

• England, and especially its press, are not much liked, after months of British television investigations and newspaper sting operations against allegedly corrupt FIFA delegates. The papers this morning have fun faithfully reporting the attacks on the English press heard at the FIFA elections yesterday.

The world cup for grudge-bearing goes to Mr Grondona. On Monday, the Argentine told a German press agency what he had said to the English 2018 bid team: "With the English bid I said: "Let us be brief. If you give back the Falkland Islands which belong to us, you will get my vote." They then became sad and left."

Yesterday, Mr Grondona ventured: "We always have attacks from England which are mostly lies with the support of journalism, which is more busy lying than telling the truth."

Then there was the Cypriot delegate, Costakis Koutsokoumis, who told the audience in Zurich: "Yes we are facing allegations. Allegations, what a beautiful English word that is. Someone stands up, says a few things in the press and then these things take their own body and mind, they are expanded, take a seed in our minds without most of the time a single shred of truth."

There was much more of this, from delegates from countries such as Congo and Haiti.

• Foreigners are just more tolerant of corruption. Yes, the English papers got round to this explanation too, listing the allegations and corruption scandals swirling and swirling around FIFA and many of the national associations whose delegates attacked England.

So far, so self-aware, then. Even in their pomp, the English papers admit that there are reasons why their country is not liked. But it still seems to me that one last, uncomfortable detail still eludes many commentators.

Underlying much of the angrier reporting there is a sense that conscious wickedness explains the lack of support for England's moral stand. Read the pages and pages of reporting, and the English papers suggest the stench of corruption around world football is so intense that anyone not endorsing English complaints must be simply part of the gravy-train, knowingly and complacently wallowing in their venality. In fairness, this anger is not exclusive to Britain: the German papers have harsh words for world football governance (though not many kind words for the FA of England), calling FIFA a "shameful money-making machine" and suggesting the Mafia is as likely to purge itself as FIFA. But fundamentally, there is a sort of assumption underlying English reporting that corrupt foreigners know, deep down, that their Anglo-Saxon accusers are right, but simply ignore them because the spoils of wickedness are so shiny and valuable.

The thing is, I think that hand-rubbing, stage-villain conscious wickedness is really very rare indeed. Over the years, I have met some really horrid people in some pretty ropey places, and I have no doubt that even the least attractive—Cuban secret policemen crowing after the jailing of a dissident, Afghan warlords, former Securitate agents from Romania, Chinese officials justifying the arrest of child refugees, the armed soldier shaking me down for a bribe in my seat on board a Tajik Airlines airliner—had somehow convinced themselves they were on the side of right, or that they were at the least no worse than everybody else. I know this because several of the above spent some time and effort explaining to me why this was so (ok, not the soldier aboard Tragic-Tajik air, he just wanted $100).

And the same force is at work here in the FIFA story. Yes, lots of serious European newspapers are full of stories about all the football officials who have been suspended and accused and probed and sacked, many of them as a result of scandals that first broke out in the English press. But that does not mean that those same European newspapers admit, for one moment, that England occupies the moral high ground.

This, perhaps, is the last scale that needs to fall from English eyes. Fairly or unfairly, I have a hunch that all those dodgy foreigners filling the English newspapers today assume that their Anglo-Saxon accusers are just as corrupt, dodgy and self-deluding. Push some foreign commentators too hard on their country's support for Mr Blatter and FIFA, and from personal experience I suspect they would start talking about British parliamentary expenses scandals, or even the British decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Here is a report from Walter Oppenheimer, veteran London correspondent for El País, the top Spanish daily:

The British press's interest in denouncing the lack of transparency around the awarding of the World Cups contrasts with the praise they heaped on the role played by Tony Blair in 2005 to secure London's unexpected victory over Paris and Madrid in winning the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Was [Mr Blair's] enchanting smile by chance the decisive factor that swayed some of the delegates he met in Singapore on the eve of the vote, who decided at the very last minute to change their votes in favour of London?

In short, add a final bullet point to the list of reasons why England looks so isolated this morning. "We" think "they" are too tolerant of corruption. They think we are revolting hypocrites. They call football the beautiful game. But it is played in a world that in its tribalism—and mutual incomprehension—can look rather ugly.

PS at 1500 on Thursday

Just to avoid any doubt, this is not a blog posting wondering if there is an urgent need for FIFA to clean up its act. Of course FIFA looks deeply compromised this morning by the depressing, farcical events of the last few days and months. Those calling for deep reforms, much more transparency and a change of guard at the top are right.

But this being a blog about Britain, this is a posting pondering why England's football establishment looks so extraordinarily isolated this morning, after leading the calls for a clean-up that is so clearly needed. That lack of support for England is not just marginal, it is crushing: the FA had hardly any allies in Zurich yesterday (lots of the 16 joining the FA in abstention are actually thought to have been Asian nations complaining that their favoured candidate to run FIFA had been forced to stand aside amid allegations of misconduct). The FA's chairman David Bernstein was received in near-silence when he called for the Blatter election to be postponed. Critics accusing England of lies were applauded to the rafters.

That level of unpopularity cannot just be ignored, and indeed there has been a lot of soul-searching in the English press today. But this blog posting offers one additional thought. It is too comforting to assume that the corrupt simply wish to be allowed to continue their corruption, while somewhere deep down in their hearts knowing that the English are right. The situation is worse than that. However unfairly, a plea that to English ears sounds like a principled call for transparency comes across to a depressing number of foreign listeners as rank hypocrisy. That toxic scepticism about English motives needs to be understood, if the English are to start building alliances with countries that essentially agree with us about FIFA, but lifted not a finger to help us yesterday.

Readers' comments

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Varq

I had never heard of the egregious Grondona so I looked him up on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Grondona
If either of the two comments attributed to him under "Controversy" is true he should be bounced out of the door so quickly his feet don't touch the steps.
Officials should not be making decisons based upon whether they like people (or countries) or agree with them on issues unrelated to the matter in question.

ignaciozz

I understand the virtues of reviewing all opinions. For the same reason, nobody should mention the name of the Argentinian Grondona without adding that the gentleman is widely (unanimously, universally) perceived to be corruption personified. It would have been astonishing for him *not* to get unmarked brown envelopes from Russia and Qatar --unmarked brown envelopes is how everything works in his fiefdom of 31 years, the Argentine Football Association.

Orcus

HAAAAAAAAAhahahaha ...

Seriously, though: as seen from Canada here, did the UK even have a chance? It's getting next year's Olympic Games, ferGawdssake.

Learn to share, chummies!

P.S. "... (L)ies supported by hournalism ...". HAAAAAAhahahaha ... GOOD one! I'll use it.

Doctorwhorules

All sports is corrupt. Thankfully it's just a game and has no bearing on real-world governance.
And Blair did not lie about Iraq. UK intelligence operatives were wrong.

Genghis Cunn

International football is dominated by a few countries. FIFA has 208 members. Most representatives come from poor countries, and this is their one chance for wealth and prestige. Blatter has blatantly exploited this for years. Of course, the system is corrupt and will remain so with its present structure. The parallels with the UN are obvious - cf Libya heading the Humsan Rights Commission - any rich orgnaisation where a swag of small, poor countries has a voting majority will be so corrupted. With FIA, it might be broken only be the major football countriesd pulling out and setting up a governing body which does not have the exisitng incentives and which is subject to transparent, rigorous, external review. And preferably not led by Platini.

G Rappard

jdcooper has rather stolen my thunder. I agree entirely with what (s)he says. There is a bit of everything in all this - the FA are making a bit of a principled stand, but it is difficult not to discern some sour grapes in there too.

Fundamentally, jd is correct that money is destroying the sport at the highest level. I lost interest years ago. It reminds me a bit of boxing when Mike Tyson went off the rails. I find the widespread feigning of injury and casual cheating that seems to be acceptable in professional football profoundly depressing. The amounts of money paid for indifferent players - and pretty good ones for that matter - are astonishing. I really enjoyed watching the Champions League final the other week and found Mr Messi's performance mesmerising. But is he really worth £150 million, as some excitable scribes have suggested? I don't think so.

Seen in that light, it is not entirely surprising that there are also questions about governance globally and elsewhere. It's desperately sad as, when played like it was at Wembley, football is indeed a beautiful game.

jamesyar

@cedric j

'I just think the English FA is a poor standard-bearer to lead that revolt.'
'They never did anything serious about it until the 2018 vote. '

England did not bid on the previous recent world cups so the FA had no exposure to the process. They have said that the corruption from the FIFA board during the bid process was so flagrant and shameless that they had to take a stand. The evidence provided by media bears this out.
If other FAs think that losing the bid means that the English FA cannot lead the revolt (despite the appalling behaviour of FIFA), then frankly, they are wrong.

As a final comment on this thread: FIFA is not fit for purpose; however given that nearly every other FA just rejected working with the English FA, rejected delaying the vote despite only one name being on the roster, then (despite evidence of corruption provided) voted to reaffirm Blatter's position, then they are part of the problem and cannot be trusted to affect change from within the organisation.

bigotboy

I originally thought that this vote may have set up a fair degree of cognitive dissonance among many of the FIFA delegates... Who do you have less regard for.. Sep Blatter and FIFA or England and it's FA ?
Silly me it was no contest

cedric j

"Do we really have to disprove this again? The 'crusade' started way before the 2018 vote. The English FA has raised concerns repeatedly in the past."

The English FA is hardly the only one to have "raised concerns" in the past. It never did anything serious about it until the 2018 vote. This is Blatter's fourth mandate for a start, where was the English opposition to at least his two previous re-elections? Now the British press is a different matter. I think it took guts by the BBC to broadcast that program days before the election, and I applaud them for it.

"The answer is clear - just because a nations government may be virtually corruption free, it does not mean its FA is."

That's always possible, though I haven't seen any serious allegations against those FAs anywhere, and you'd think they would be careful before accepting bribes considering their countries' legislation and independent justice. I think it's more likely that while not actively corrupt they are reluctant to frontally oppose Blatter because they know they wouldn't win and they'd lose whatever influence they have within FIFA.

But by the same logic I see little reason to believe that the English FA is somehow the only FA on the planet that did not get corrupted by FIFA politics. It seems much more likely that only anger at the 2018 fiasco is making them come out frontally against him. And unless they get down from their high horse and actually try and work with the other FAs that fundamentally agree with them, they won't get anywhere.

Oh, and BTW - I don't "admit" to FIFA being corrupt as a concession to you. I'm convinced they are, I despise Blatter, and I think the whole organisation needs to rebuilt among much more transparent lines. Once again, I just think the English FA is a poor standard-bearer to lead that revolt.

jamesyar

@cedric j
'Once again, would we be seeing anything like this if the 2018 world cup had been given to England?'

Do we really have to disprove this again? The 'crusade' started way before the 2018 vote. The English FA has raised concerns repeatedly in the past. The panorama program on the BBC that exposed FIFA corruption was broadcast 5 days before the vote. The fact that European media only (apparently grudgingly) took notice until after the 2018 vote is irrelevant.

You admit that FIFA is corrupt. So if the nordic governments have a fine track record combating corruption, why did the nordic FAs vote for a corrupt regime? Why jeopardise a perfect record by not abstaining from voting for Blatter, given that his was the only name on the list? The answer is clear - just because a nations government may be virtually corruption free, it does not mean its FA is.

And please stop the insinuations about virtue. It is frankly silly to infer that any countries government , UK or otherwise, has to have a perfect record against corruption in order for their FA to point out FIFA's endemic corruption.

cedric j

@jamesyar:

FIFA apologist? You'll have to try harder than that. As I clearly said, I think FIFA is rotten to the core. I just also think that the FA's sudden crusade against it would have looked a lot more principled if it had not started after the loss of the 2018 world cup.

"Or is it that they have done so well combating corruption in others areas that they are allowed to overlook it this time within FIFA?"

That's a spectacularly weak argument. The Nordic states have a proven record against corruption, much stronger than the British one. They also have no obvious reason to support Blatter - it's not like Sweden just got the World Cup or anything like that. The fact that they are not supporting the FA - whose only support seem to be some Asian countries bitter over their own (corrupt as well) candidate not winning - should tell you something, instead of claiming they've just decided to ignore this specific corruption just once for whatever mysterious reason.

"At least try to hide the bigotry. It is obvious what drives your cognitive dissonance."

Ah yes, it must all be due to bigotry. Nobody is behind the FA because everyone hates the British...

For your information, far from hating the UK, it's the European country I like best after my own, where I've lived in the past and where I'd gladly go live again. I just think one of its not so likable quality is its tendency to see itself as a paragon of virtue in a corrupt world, including in cases like this one where the English involved didn't seem to have major problems with it until it crossed British interests. Once again, would we be seeing anything like this if the 2018 world cup had been given to England? I didn't think so.

jamesyar

*cedric j
If I get this right, Nordic countries do well on anti corruption indices; therefore FIFA cannot be corrupt because Nordic countries voted to maintain the status quo?
Or is it that they have done so well combating corruption in others areas that they are allowed to overlook it this time within FIFA?

Amusing the mental acrobatics that apologists for FIFA have to do to.

'how un-saintly people self-justify their positions don't seem applicable to Englishmen'
At least try to hide the bigotry. It is obvious what drives your cognitive dissonance.

cedric j

"At some point, you come to the only rational conclusion - the rest of the world really is corrupt. The very concept of fairness is forced upon them, and practiced only when no one is watching. And the person who 'plays by the rules'? He is considered a fool, and deserves what he gets."

Yes, the "rest of the world" is corrupt, and only the US and the UK ever plays fair, it's well-known. Which is presumably why the two countries are ranked #20 and #22 in Transparency International's 2010 rankings - the foreigners doing the rankings must be corrupt!

cedric j

Bagehot goes to great length to explain not only how everyone but the brits are corrupt, and not just that, but how they are not even willing to admit it, just like Cuban secret services or Afghan warlords - pity he doesn't spend one minute trying to do the same analysis on the FA's motivations. Because if he did, he might wonder why the FA's campaign started after they lost the 2018 World Cup, and whether they would be railing against Blatter today if they had won. Or he might want to consider whether the British sport establishment is really such a virtuous one compared to everyone else by yes, looking at the British Olympic Association's attitude toward the murkiness of Olympic Games votes - for example, handing out the 2014 winter games to Russia as well. Funny how they don't have much to say. Or if he really think England's isolation is really primarily about being less corrupt than the rest of the world, he might want to look at how countries generally considered to be the least corrupt on the planet, like the Nordic ones, voted. Surely they would support the righteous English campaign against corruption? Ah but unfortunately, his insights into how un-saintly people self-justify their positions don't seem applicable to Englishmen, presumably because they are by default in the right.

Now I fully agree that FIFA is terribly corrupt, and that specifically giving the World Cups to Russia and even more Qatar were ridiculous decisions. But the reason the FA is considered by other federations as being hypocritical and self-righteous for waking up to FIFA's corruption only after losing a World Cup to it is because it is. And I don't think attempts to "analyse" your isolation in world football that takes as their premise that the FA is indeed a beacon of virtue and every delegation that doesn't join them are self-deluding themselves is going to get you or world football very far.

willstewart

PS - much the same might be said of the Eurovision song contest (I appreciate that US readers will not know of this; it is a TV national-voting-based talent show) Once people voted for songs and some pretty good ones got through (ABBA for example). Now people 'corruptly' trade favours and it is an object lesson in the limits of democracy!

willstewart

You are hard to understand - sure it is odd the the FA is unpopular in spite of being pretty clearly right, but aside from the FA's personal style (& this may really be the problem) much of the UK's press seems about right. FIFA is corrupt and many of the delegates are also corrupt - as we see it. They think that alternate back-rubbing or trading favours is how things are done and is not corruption. Those intrinsically of our view like other Europeans know they are in a minority and do not wish to spoil their favour-trading position on a lost cause.

I fear that your solution to this is to get the FA more into favour-trading! Perhaps you are right - puritanical honesty does not always work best - but you are advocating (mild) corruption.

MarkB

When Americans complained about East German Olympic athletes, we were told by Europeans - including Brits - that it was just because we were bad losers. When Americans complained about Chinese Olympic , we were told by Europeans again that we were just poor sports. Of course we learned later that in both cases, the complaints were fully justified - both teams were loaded to the gills with steroids, growth hormones, etc. This was perfectly obvious at the time, yet world opinion was against the American concerns.

Remember when Russian and French skating judges traded support for their skaters/dancers? At some point, you come to the only rational conclusion - the rest of the world really is corrupt. The very concept of fairness is forced upon them, and practiced only when no one is watching. And the person who 'plays by the rules'? He is considered a fool, and deserves what he gets.

Anjin-San

Could it also be the case that the (justified) reputation of feral press in the UK has undermined the credibility and/or integrity of its reporting to the outside world?

jdcooper

Ok so I deliberately don't know anything about this, because I don't care, but it seems to an outsider that football has precisely the governing body it deserves. Everyone involved is disgracefully overpaid, and over-rated as people and athletes. If FIFA is terminally corrupt then that sounds like the perfect match. And it seems completely obvious that the only reasons UK and Australia are furious, having seen some of the mind-numbing way this has been reported, as the initial WC announcement was reported, are reasons of sour grapes. If England had been awarded the World Cup (and thank Christ it wasn't), it would have been Russia and Qatar loudly complaining of corruption. In this regard I think Bagehot is giving the British press too much credit by calling them self-aware.

legen

First of all the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was patently absurd. Hugely wealthy but with a miniscule indigenous population - how they will get a team together to play the opening match of the tournament I don't know (recruit a bunch of Africans I imagine)
FIFA could well be corrupt from top to bottom. We have seen how brown envelopes containing $40000 in cash were doled out to Caribbean delegates. How far across the board did this go ? Did the delegates voting for Blatter have a vested interest in keeping the lid on things ? Blatter can surely be relied on to keep the lid on. How on earth could they otherwise vote for an elderly man who has so conspicuously failed.
By the way Blatter has fiercely opposed the video control now in widespread use in tennis,cricket,rugby and no doubt other sports. Remember the German goal vs England - it was clearly a yard over the goal line. Fortunately in the event it didn't matter.

About Bagehot's notebook

In this blog, our Bagehot columnist surveys the politics of Britain, British life and Britain's place in the world. The column and blog are named after Walter Bagehot, an English journalist who was the editor of The Economist from 1861 to 1877

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