Exactly, the holier than thou agenda pushed in the media these days is embarrassing. The big European FAs are just as bad as the African and Caribbean, only the difference being they're slightly more subtle and the ones bribing, not being bribed.

I'm not sure about that. If that were true, surely the likes of Blatter would have leaked these things in order to go after and embarrasss UEFA? Europeans might try to play the game as much as anyone, but while they'll be rolling out their A listers like David Cameron (:lol🙂 or making the odd promises that perhaps cross the ethical line, places like Qatar will be far more brazen,going well beyond the line and just leave big stacks of cash in someones Hotel room.

You would be wrong, the Europeans do the exact same thing as everyone else, you just don't hear about it that much because you (presumably) live here yourself. Shortly after Germany was awarded the 2006 WC there were first allegations of irregularities in the awarding process and not long after it was virtually proven that Leo Kirch (Germany's equivalent to Rupert Murdoch), Beckenbauer and Bayern Munich greased palms to get the WC instead of South Africa. Malta, Thailand, Tunisia and of course Trinidad & Tobago all got licence fees from Kirch and were hosts to Bayern friendlies in the aftermath of the awarding, Blatter even got the federal cross of merit in 2006 because of it. 😆

You could dig up tons of dirt on every single FA in the world, for the reason alone that they are the sole governing bodies in a multi billion dollar business without any sort of regulation. The hypocrisy here is that people only notice the rampant corruption when countries with which the West is not affiliated are involved.

Nonsense. UEFA is nowhere near as corrupt as the rest of FIFA.

Right. For that which must not, cannot be.

jones wrote:

You would be wrong, the Europeans do the exact same thing as everyone else, you just don't hear about it that much because you (presumably) live here yourself. Shortly after Germany was awarded the 2006 WC there were first allegations of irregularities in the awarding process and not long after it was virtually proven that Leo Kirch (Germany's equivalent to Rupert Murdoch), Beckenbauer and Bayern Munich greased palms to get the WC instead of South Africa. Malta, Thailand, Tunisia and of course Trinidad & Tobago all got licence fees from Kirch and were hosts to Bayern friendlies in the aftermath of the awarding, Blatter even got the federal cross of merit in 2006 because of it. 😆

You could dig up tons of dirt on every single FA in the world, for the reason alone that they are the sole governing bodies in a multi billion dollar business without any sort of regulation. The hypocrisy here is that people only notice the rampant corruption when countries with which the West is not affiliated are involved.

 None of that contradicts what I said, i.e. everyone will play the game. There's also been a few articles around that have sighted the hypocrisy of the England bid team. But there are different ends of the scale.

Put it another way, I'm trying to buy a house at the moment and I'd say all estate agents are dodgy in their own way, some are more subtle and create bidding wars to drive up prices, others keep the house price down and interest low in exchange for a brown envalope from a certain interested party. Both dodgy in their own way, but to say they're all the same and as bad as each other wouldn't be a true reflection of the environment. One is trying to find loopholes and manipulating the system, the other is outright breaking the law.

Corruption is corruption. In other words, this investigation isn't a moral or ethical act against corruption, or for the "good of football".

Kel Varnsen wrote:

Nonsense. UEFA is nowhere near as corrupt as the rest of FIFA.

Agreed, but I don't agree that UEFA should be allowed to break away from FIFA either. Looking at Platini alone, there's plenty in there to question the conflicts of interest that exist, for example his lobbying efforts for Qatar, his son being employed by the Quatari Foundation and his reversal of his FFP laws within two years under pressure from Qatar as well.

I have no doubt that if FIFA cease to exist, within 20 years you'll have the same issues at UEFA. The amount of money circulating in football along with the lack of transparency makes it almost certain that this will be the case. If you look at the preliminary findings of the Garcia report, the only bid that didn't have any issues with it was the Belgian and Dutch bid. The rest of them were all tainted, to one degree or another.

Fundamentally, the lack of transparency and checks on any of these international institutions will always give us to corruption - in some form or another. The fundamental structure of international football needs to be changed such that the smaller nations receive the benefit to grow, while the established FA's should still have a larger say in the matter than they do currently.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn about corruption in Europe or UEFA. I'm against that too, while your right an issue may not have been made of it if those countries hadn't got burned who really cares, it's just a means to an end. I would like football as a whole to be cleaned up so if we get hit in that Chen up so be it. I'm not sure whether statement is that the status quo is fine but if it is I can't agree. Big money has had a poisonous effect on football and I'm all for redressing the recent trend.

FIFA, UEFA, Olympic Committee - they are all corrupt of course. I don't care much for the Olympics, so I don't really care about the Olympic Committee, but I care about football. Though UEFA is certainly corrupt, it seems pretty clear that FIFA is on another level. Bring FIFA down, and hopefully that will have consequences for cleaning up UEFA as well.

bribery schmibery. Levels the playing field.

General Mirth wrote:
Kel Varnsen wrote:

Nonsense. UEFA is nowhere near as corrupt as the rest of FIFA.

Agreed, but I don't agree that UEFA should be allowed to break away from FIFA either.

Be allowed? Who should deny them?

Kel Varnsen wrote:
General Mirth wrote:

Agreed, but I don't agree that UEFA should be allowed to break away from FIFA either.

Be allowed? Who should deny them?

Well, presumably the various national FAs that they are made up of. That decision will be put to a vote as well, UEFA can't make a unilateral decision to form their own organisation unless they have the support of most of their members. Plus various sponsors and other confederations in South America will have some influence on this.

A fragmented organisation wouldn't really help.

General Mirth wrote:
Kel Varnsen wrote:

Be allowed? Who should deny them?

Well, presumably the various national FAs that they are made up of. That decision will be put to a vote as well, UEFA can't make a unilateral decision to form their own organisation unless they have the support of most of their members. Plus various sponsors and other confederations in South America will have some influence on this.

A fragmented organisation wouldn't really help.

Well, of course but UEFA is de facto nothing more than the European FAs. So I presumed the national FAs in this case supported UEFA's withdrawal. 

Kel Varnsen wrote:
General Mirth wrote:

Well, presumably the various national FAs that they are made up of. That decision will be put to a vote as well, UEFA can't make a unilateral decision to form their own organisation unless they have the support of most of their members. Plus various sponsors and other confederations in South America will have some influence on this.

A fragmented organisation wouldn't really help.

Well, of course but UEFA is de facto nothing more than the European FAs. So I presumed the national FAs in this case supported UEFA's withdrawal. 

also the oil money and sponsors wouldn't want football to be fragmented. Qatar already have Platini's ear and Prince Ali clearly has some influence amongst UEFA.

I would be favour of boycotting the next to world cups (which can be done on a national level - and therefore more likely
to succeed) but to actually cut away from an organisation that has built the framework encompassing football around the world is too knee jerk and a waste of all the structure that's been in place. Plus as I mentioned before - UEFA are better run than FIFA but I have no faith that their foundations and structure won't be susceptible to the same Influence and mistakes in the future.

I think FIFA have done well to include football across the world. But not all countries should have the same
voting privileges - it's not the UN. Nor should the president be allowed to stay for an unlimited period of time. There should be mandatory rotation every 2 terms at least

General Mirth wrote:

I would be favour of boycotting the next to world cups (which can be done on a national level - and therefore more likely to succeed) but to actually cut away from an organisation that has built the framework encompassing football around the world is too knee jerk and a waste of all the structure that's been in place. Plus as I mentioned before - UEFA are better run than FIFA but I have no faith that their foundations and structure won't be susceptible to the same Influence and mistakes in the future.

This summarises my view on the subject too. Well said, GM.

the really awesome thing to do would be for large nations to band together and stage their own tournament, and do it for charity.

in other words, if you could get 8-10 big european countries to boycott the world cup, along with brazil/argentina and the US, you could have a 12 or 16 team tournament, stage it in one of the countries participating (like the UK) and donate all proceeds to UNICEF or some other charity. it would be a huge public relations win, and when anyone talks about the 2018 world cup, they'll mention the event. big countries withdrawing from the world cup and participating in the charity tournament would really hurt FIFA.

FIFA still has jurisdiction over UEFA though, as seen in the Bitey McRacist ban for instance. Something like that would certainly lead to FIFA wanting to punish the culprits, and then UEFA would need to make a stand to either support the nations in question, or a complete breakdown with FIFA.