EDITORIALS

june 21, 2014 vol xlix no 25 EPW Economic & Political Weekly8

Beautiful Game, Ugly Administration

The administration of football does not measure up to the standards set by its best practitioners on the fi eld.

Protests at major sporting events, especially in the deve-loping world, are not unusual. Mega-sporting events have always been used by regimes to “cleanse” their

cities of the poor while the governments engage in extravagant spending. This was true of China where the 2012 Beijing Olympics

were held and India where the much smaller 2010 Common-wealth Games were conducted in Delhi. But the ongoing pro-tests that have lasted nearly a year against the preparations for the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil have been somewhat unprecedented.

EDITORIALS

Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 21, 2014 vol xlix no 25 9

Football is the “beautiful game” for the sports connoisseur, especially when it is played by the Lionel Messis, Neymars, Xavis, Philipp Lahms and other such skilled practitioners. It is also the game that attracts the most widespread support across the world. Every four years, the excitement surround-ing the sport rises to a pitch when the World Cup tournament is held featuring 32 national teams which have qualifi ed for the fi nals. The host, Brazil, is the presumptive favourite in 2014 because of the abundant natural talent in its squad and because it enjoys the “home advantage”. Yet, protestors in football-crazy Brazil have hit the streets to express their unhappiness about the conduct of the World Cup. They have questioned the unnecessary expenditure on fancy stadia, the simultaneous hikes in fees for public services, displacement of the poor and the widespread corruption benefi ting offi cials close to or part of the Workers’ Party that runs the national government.

Brazil is said to have spent around $11 billion on the 2014 tournament, making it the most expensive World Cup ever held. The intensity of the protests has drawn support even from the game’s icons, such as the 1994 World Cup winner-turned-politician Romario and his captain Rai. Even the apolitical Pele, arguably the best footballer ever, has said a few things criticis-ing the huge spending by the government. A number of political forces from the centre-right and the left have ranged against the government over its conduct of the World Cup. After all, this is also the year when presidential elections are due and Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, has pledged to seek a renewal of her mandate.

But it is not only the Government of Brazil that is being pushed into a corner. For all the sporting excellence on the fi eld the admini stration of the game has been controlled by corrupt and short-sighted bureaucrats. The Federation Inter nationale de Football Association (FIFA), which administers the game globally, is notoriously scandal-ridden. Its long-time president, Sepp Blatter, has faced many allegations of fi nancial mis-management and is also known to have regressive views

on a number of subjects related to football – such as on the widespread racism in European stadia and on women in foot-ball. For the 2014 World Cup, FIFA got a national ban on alcohol sales and use in stadia overturned, showing little concern for a well-thought-out measure to stamp out hooliganism in Brazilian football.

FIFA’s manner of accepting bids for conducting World Cups has also come under intense scrutiny. The bid for the 2022 World Cup was won by Qatar whose method of obtaining support from FIFA executives has come under suspicion. Accu-sations of bribes being given to a number of executives across different countries have led to FIFA launching an internal eth-ics enquiry that is scheduled to submit its report in October this year. That Qatar won the bid for the 2022 World Cup did not make sense at all. The country has never qualifi ed to play in the World Cup fi nals. The extreme weather conditions in Qatar during the summer months – when World Cup matches are generally scheduled so that they do not confl ict with league football in Europe – are unsuitable for outdoor play. One of the key negotiators in Qatar’s bid, billionaire Mohamed bin Ham-mam, had been suspended from FIFA-related activity for al-leged corruption during a bid for the FIFA presidency in 2011. Qatar’s government and football authorities have come under even more intense criticism than their counterparts in Brazil. Investigative reports have depicted abuse of migrant labour, who are engaged in construction work as the country embarks on a makeover ahead of 2022.

The protests in Brazil and the reports about corruption and inhuman working conditions in Qatar beg the question as to the purpose of holding these World Cup jamborees. The World Cup and “the beautiful game” have been built as a spec-tacle for football-loving fans. Yet it is the profi teers who have benefi ted through exploitation of labour and displacement of the poor. But do the fans really care? When the football kicks off and the frenzy over the performances on the fi eld takes over, would the ugliness in the administration of the sport really mat-ter to anyone watching the game?