Author: Joe Siegal
Though soccer is the world’s most popular sport, it is hardly the best regulated. Amid the revelation in the last few weeks that hundreds of matches from low level league games to World Cup qualifiers and European Champions League games may have been fixed through influence from organized crime syndicates, there have been cries for reform of the sport’s international governing body, the International Federation of Associated Football (FIFA). The problem with this outcry for institutional changes is that FIFA cannot adequately govern itself and has been confronted with allegations of institutional corruption that signal a larger problem in the sport.
The investigation of potential match fixing is wide-reaching and could show that FIFA does not have control over worldwide soccer. Nearly 700 dubious matches across multiple continents have been cited as evidence for foul play. Law enforcement is already trying to round up those involved in this highly profitable tampering. FIFA’s estimate is that match fixing adds to over $14 billion per year for crime syndicates. The sheer monetary impact of match fixing demonstrates that this is a major issue that requires the most attention possible from the soccer community. But, with FIFA’s recent history of alleged questionable practices, it is hard to imagine that this will be pursued the right way.
FIFA profits come disproportionally from the money generated by the World Cup, the world’s most watched sporting event. When Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, the allegations of payoffs and bribes offered to FIFA officials in return for their votes sprang up almost immediately. Suspected corruption along these lines is hardly without precedent in international sports. Bribery scandals have been publicized with regard to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and even the recent London games. International events like the World Cup and the Olympics generate massive profits and attention for the hosts and thus are highly contested. In the case of FIFA, whose biggest event can’t even be planned without controversy rearing its head, expelling corruption hasn’t worked within the highest levels of administration.
Therefore, there can’t be much realistic hope that FIFA can clean up soccer and prevent outside forces like the lucrative sports betting industry from infiltrating games. FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, who has held his position since 1998 through controversial and sometimes unopposed re-elections, recently said that he believes match fixing is not FIFA’s biggest problem. He cited the ugly racism directed at black players around the world as a more pressing issue. While both are issues in need of attention, the downplaying of one major scandal in favor of highlighting another is further indication that the problems of corruption and match fixing will not be done away with properly.
Sports without integrity have no meaning and the world’s biggest sport can’t lose sight of this. With all the people around the world who are riveted by soccer, the stakes are high and the time is now for cleaning up the sport before fans start to lose trust.
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