As must be expected I have been following developments in FIFA since my involuntary exit from my daring quest to succeed Mr. Sepp Blatter was aborted shortly after conception some months ago. It was hurtful but here I am still pounding the streets, alive and kicking!
It is not surprising that nothing came out of that effort. Nigeria, indeed Africa, has just moved on to other more important matters. It is as if I never existed to start with, everybody and everything in sports back to their old ways. What a pity!
The FIFA elections will take place in a few weeks time. Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini will continue their lost battles to fight against 8-year bans imposed on them by the same ‘monster’ they created.
It is the worst possible way to end their careers in football that spanned several decades despite their total stranglehold over football matters until only a few months ago when they both drank from the poisoned chalice of their private and unwritten business.
One year ago, no one could possibly have envisaged or predicted the magnitude of their fall from grace. At that time both men were revered and feared. They were the two most powerful persons in football administration, answerable to no one, accountable to no one, with the power to decide the fate of any or all of the 209 countries they superintended over.
It is the monster they created that finally consumed them, and their world came tumbling down from the top of Mount Olympus.
Six weeks away from the elections the field of contestants untainted by the splattering waste of the worst scandals in football history has become so thin that no one seems to even know who truly deserves to lead the organization into the future. It appears that none of the present contestants represents the authentic change that FIFA, traumatised since the beginning of the present crisis, demands and deserves at this time. Each contestant seems to carry a baggage from the past.
All is not lost though as I believe that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel. Already one of the contestants is singing my old song as part of his election manifesto – to introduce the concept of regional World Cup, an idea I mooted in 2003, ‘sold’ to the 5 countries along the African West coast to be led by Nigeria, that was shot down by some myopic interests even before the idea left the tarmac of implementation. That story will be told fully one day for the sake of posterity.
In the aftermath of the present crisis the world is demanding genuine reforms in FIFA. I have read a key element of a new proposal by the reforms committee that prescribes a limited maximum three-term tenure of 12 years for the president.
I could not believe it. This is returning to our vomit. 12 years in the saddle of any organization is too long. It is a return to what brought football administration to the present situation – the concentration of too much power for too long in one person. 12 whole years?
The reforms committee itself is a vestige of the Blatter era. It too deserves new faces and fresh thinking. Very little ever changes in FIFA’s rules, laws and traditions to warrant the stability they canvas. Such longevity in power merely fuels dictatorship and encourages abuse of power and entrenchment of stooges into positions that protect the leader. That’s where we are coming from!
A meaningful reform process must start with a drastic reduction in the tenure and powers of the president. Even the office of the president of the most powerful nation on earth is limited to 2 terms of a total of 8 years. There is nothing a FIFA president wants to achieve in football that he cannot achieve in 4 (or a maximum of 8) years. What is needed is a reduction in the power of the office, creation of opportunities for wider participation of more stakeholders in the affairs of FIFA to liberalise appointments into sub-committees that have become the fuel of corruption in FIFA.
Other issues are:
1. the independence of national associations, reflected in the statutes, must also become an enshrined practice;
2. FIFA’s interferences and interventions in the affairs of its members must be halted;
3. the World Cup, FIFA’s most priced possession and the single greatest cause of the present crisis, that must be managed and organised differently. Bidding for the World Cup and hosting it have become the most lucrative business in the whole of sport.
4. The power and process of appointing the membership of committees must also be changed such that it is used it to fester political or financial nests.
My own humble personal prescriptions for authentic reforms are these:
1. A fixed tenure of a single term of 4 years (at most 2 terms) for the FIFA President.
2. Abolition of block voting during elections. The independence of each national association must be guaranteed by its freedom to vote independently and secretly.
3. Biding for the World Cup must be done by an independent body set up for that purpose only, and must consist of membership outside the Executive Committee members of FIFA to be transparent! Its terms of reference must be spelt out clearly.
4. The finances of FIFA must be transparent and available to all its members including the remuneration of its officials.
5. The tenures of the presidency of the Confederations and the national federations must also follow the same pattern as FIFA.
6. Joint hosting of the World Cup by neighbouring countries must be introduced to spread the benefits and opportunities of hosting the world’s greatest individual sports event.
7. The cumbersome process of contesting elections that encourage corrupt practices must be abolished.
I am looking at the narrow field of contestants, searching for one who fits into my vision of a president that has the background, that represents the overall best interest of football, that has the depth in knowledge and experience and can drive genuine reforms after February 2016.
My friend’s warn me not to underestimate the South African, but I am seeing, more and more, the outlines of the only French man in the group!
A successor to Serena Williams found!
I believe we have arrived at the terminus of the an era and the beginning of another in women’s tennis.
Permit me to be one of the first persons to announce the arrival of a young 18-year-old Japanese/Haitian that lives in Florida, United States, to the world stage.
She enters the ongoing Australian Open at 127 in the world, but I believe that before the end of this year she will be one of the top ten players in the world. I needed to watch her only once, how she dismantled 18th seeded Elina Svilolina, to come to this conclusion. I have since read how impressed several other tennis analysts that have been monitoring her emergence in the past two years have come to a similar conclusion. She is the real deal.
By the time you are reading this she must have played her third match against one of the strongest female players in the circuit, number one female player in the world in 2012, now 16th in the world, twice winner of the Australian Open, Victoria Azarenka.
It would not matter what the result of the match is, she has served the world notice of her coming of age to join in the succession battle to Serena Williams
When asked what her goals are she said confidently’ “to be the very best, like no one ever was”.
That speaks volumes. I am predicting that by the end of the 2016 tennis season, baring any serious injuries that could halt any athlete’s rise, she would have risen in the global rankings to become one of the top ten players in the world. I also see her wresting one of the major trophies before season’s end.
Do not be surprised if I am even wrong. She might even do much better than I am predicting. She has all the ammunition to become number 1 in the world this season. Her name is Naomi Osaka!
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