By James Dostoyevsky
After months of research, discussions, and hearings, after a Herculean effort to “do the right thing” (as the present Tory government in the UK regularly tells everyone it is doing), the mountain has given birth to Mighty Mouse.
I don’t even remember how many Sports Ministers there were of late – all I know there were many – but they seem to have one fundamentally important thing in common: none of them have a clue even if their life depended on it (it doesn’t).
The latest throw of dice is the most fabulous brainchild born by the Crouch Review (no, nothing to do with the footballer who, when asked what he’d be had he not been a footballer, said: “single”. Got to love that giant). So that report (Tracey Crouch is no longer Sports Minister of course: she was ‘Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Sport, Civil Society and Loneliness’ [I did not invent the ‘loneliness’ thing! It is part of the job title] from May 2015 to November 2018, under two Prime Ministers, David Cameron and Theresa May, but turned down Johnson’s offer to continue in Cabinet), focuses on bringing in an independent regulator for the people’s game. In case you are unaware of what that is: it is football.
Needless (nearly) to say that the Premier League already opposes the proposal.
Equally needless to say, is that the EPL has always fought against anything and anybody who’d clip its wings. Understandable, if you are a Premier League Club in a league that is used to spending a billion pounds per transfer window. But that is not my point.
My point is that a government introduced ‘Independent Regulator’ of Football in England – if not the UK: after all Westminster apparently runs all four Home Nations, even if they all have their own, occasionally dysfunctional, Football Associations – that Regulator-concept seems to fly in the face of FIFA’s Statutes, namely point c) [and likely point d)] of Article 15 of the General Provisions of the FIFA Statutes. That Article says:
‘Member associations’ statutes must comply with the principles of good
governance, and shall in particular contain, at a minimum, provisions
relating to the following matters:
(…)
(…)
(c) to be independent and avoid any form of political interference;
(d) to ensure that judicial bodies are independent (separation of powers)
To be independent, ok (from what, right?) But then “…and avoid any form of political interference”.
No doubt, the genius at the helm of global football (he personally invented modern football, the internet, coffee machine pods, and he presently delivers a new definition of sexual assault by having one of football’s biggest scumbags return to the game, after numbers of young girls apparently were unable to convince the idiots at CAS that rape by the Haitian FA boss was rape nevertheless – even if you are an FA boss…), so that man there will possibly be mighty miffed by good old Tracey and her Review.
Infantino takes exception to nothing if not an infringement of his own realm and privilege. He decides what is what and who must not be anything, hence the ‘Review that Tracey brought’ will irritate his hyper sensitive ego, and a new series of charisma-lessons are actively on the horizon.
There are bean-counters and regulation-counters. Then there is GI Joe. He’s both. And he won’t like this UK government move.
An ‘independent regulator’, anointed by any UK Government of any day, screams of Article 15, paragraph c): the worst thing that can ever happen to FIFA: Government interference! What horror.
Old Blatter used to get foam on his lips when a government – any government, anywhere – dared to interfere in his game. He would run to the sanctimonious sanctions office (there is no such thing, but still), scream bloody murder (he wouldn’t scream, usually anyway) and demand that the respective FA were immediately sanctioned.
“Government interference” is the red line that no FIFA apparatchik can accept. It must be culled (a bit like how Gates wants to cull old people to make space for his robotic humanoids that need no food, only energy).
And since GI Joe is cut of the same cloth (even if the Old Man would hate to be juxtaposed to The Infant in any which way), he’ll foam too, and scream and all that.
So, here we go.
Tory Tracey (TT) produced a Review, which drips of Government interference of the worst kind: for football to be regulated by a government-compliant Regulator, appointed by a government, reporting to a government, and ascertaining that that Government will have the ultimate say about a bunch of things football, spells doom.
TT meant well, I’m certain. But her FA signed a contract with FIFA (and with UEFA – you’ve got to have the blessing of a Confederation before you can join the ranks of FIFA Membership). That contract regulates the English football membership in FIFA (and UEFA, too, separately). One core point of that FIFA Membership Agreement is, I repeat:
(c) to be independent and avoid any form of political interference;
I fear that the Crouch Review will face stiff FIFA winds, rather sooner than later. It is presently uncertain where that wind blows from, whether it is hot air from the Qatari desert (a preferred GI Joe habitat), or Paris (where some of FIFA now resides in a Qatari-owned Palace), or indeed Zurich – where FIFA used to be.
But certainly it makes you wonder if the British islanders had even realised that by ceding decision making power over football to government they would be breaking their contract with FIFA and UEFA. This is an FA and a government that wants to host the Euros in 2028.
Government interference is a thing. For FIFA it is a very bad thing (except, of course, if the government is throwing money at it). And to go by TT’s ideas, to submit English football to the whims (rulings) of a government appointed ‘Independent Regulator’ is possibly the worst thing that FIFA can imagine.
The idea arrogantly pushed out from the little Englanders that the independent regulator will save European football from a Super League is also as un-thought through concept. The European Super League doesn’t go away because of the order of an English government regulator. The word Europe is the key one here – one the English keep forgetting they have left behind and are being made to suffer for now. The government could save the English from their own Super League, but that’s the Premier League already isn’t it?
These days nobody really knows what FIFA thinks, does, will do or won’t ever consider. Maybe global football’s governing body will try to appease before it takes harsh measures. Who knows – maybe good old Tracey will be appointed to some (meaningless) FIFA Committee where she can produce review after review until the cows come home. The ones near the original HQ of FIFA. Not those in desert lands (where there aren’t any, I hear), or the Place de la Concorde, which accepts them only in delicately sliced fashion on one of the fabulous dishes served all about town.
As far as I can see, Tracey’s brainchild risks to be a stillbirth before it can even walk.
Let’s see?
James Dostoyevsky was a Washington-based author until the end of 2018, where he reported on sports politics and socio-cultural topics. He returned to Europe in 2019 and continues to follow football politics – presently with an emphasis on the Middle East, Europe and Africa.