FIFA - The good, the bad and the ugly

FIFA

The stage is set and players are itching to get their feet on the turf and bring glory to their respective nations. It is indeed the time of the year when the whole world has a single time zone with everyone glued to their respective television sets irrelevant of whether it is day or night.

But behind all this glittering gold, that is the World Cup, one fails to take notice of the mastermind behind the whole event – FIFA (nope not the videogame you spend hours on). It is Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) that is behind the whole scheme of the football that would unfold in a day’s time.

The Good

Undoubtedly, FIFA has been one of the most efficiently run sporting organizations. It is no mean task to manage a sport of such a huge following with such a wide spread popularity. However, FIFA has displayed its administrative brilliance in managing to pull it off with such relative ease.

Ever since its inception FIFA has played a vital role in the development of the sport of football. The concept of an encounter between different nations in a bid to establish their football supremacy at the global stage inspired the World Cup, which is the brainchild of FIFA and the success of the idea can be witnessed to date.

FIFA has always been in a continuous process of working towards the game’s further growth. Over the years, it has launched several campaigns and events in promoting the game across different parts of the world and has been vastly successful in doing so. In fact FIFA could take part credit for the beautiful game of football being the most popular sport in the world.

The Bad:

Protests in Brazil against them hosting the World Cup

However under no circumstances can one paint a picture of FIFA being a clean organization working selflessly for the development of football. Like every other organization even FIFA has had its fair share of controversies and alleged charges of corruption and bribery cases against it.

Taking the scenario of the current World Cup into perspective, when Brazil was touted to host the world Cup back in 2007 they were at their economic peak. But ever since then, until now at the eve of the World Cup’s onset, Brazil’s economy has taken a big beating and they nowhere resemble the nation they were, when the hosting rights were given to them.

With widespread poverty across the nation, the government’s money has primarily been doled out for the preparations of the World Cup with such critical national issues going unanswered. Almost a figure of 12 billion has been spent by the government on the World Cup preparations which is way over the initial estimated figure. Allegations of bribery and corrupt politicians have been raised for the same.

The Brazilian government’s defense for the same has been that revenue would be generated through the varied mediums of tourism, portion of ticket sales, etc. But the biggest revenue a nation earns while hosting an international event is through the taxes levied on the concerned sporting body which in this case is the FIFA. But the twist in the tale is that FIFA has been fully exempted from paying taxes, which has left the government to lose out on huge amounts of money.

To add further load to their misery is the fact that the government also has to give the World Cup sponsors tax breaks on FIFA’s insistence. This means that the government would have to forgo the potential hundreds of millions it could have earned through these sponsors.

FIFA, instead of using the enormous revenue they are generating through the World Cup, for helping the local poverty stricken communities of the host nation would just be using the event as an opportunity to add on chunks of money to their already loaded coffers. Also the families of several workers who lost their lives in the accidents during the construction of the World Cup stadia have not been offered any sort of compensation from FIFA.

It is not a wonder that the even the football crazy people of the nation of Brazil have turned their back against the very same game through their infamous protests and acts of violence. Ultimately it is a question of their survival.

The Ugly:

Qatar’s successful bid has been riddled with allegations of bribery

If the debacles of the current World Cup weren’t enough to reflect the dark side of FIFA, the allegations of bribery and corruption over the body handing over the World Cup 2022 rights to Qatar just paints a further murkier picture of the governing body that is FIFA. Not only is a World Cup in those extreme weather conditions not feasible for the players, considering the soaring temperatures to which the mercury rises in this nation but also the labour policy of the nation is inhuman.

Qatar’s policy of keeping the labour bound to a single employer and not being allowed to leave the country without the consent of the employer is practically a modern version of the ill practice of slavery. There has also been a shocking rise in the death of these immigrants owing to the intense working conditions that the workers are subjected to.

Considering it is this very working labour class that would be involved in the preparations for the World Cup the number of death could be astonishing. The beautiful game of football would literally be scarred and there could be any uncountable deaths that could occur.

At the end of the day however disturbed and angry one might be against the atrocities that FIFA has pulled off, every football fan would find himself forgetting all of this when the kickoff whistle is blown and love FIFA for its ultimate showpiece event- The World Cup.

Empathy is all one could carry for the victims of the dark side of the FIFA regime.