Can captain Blatter weather the storm?

I wonder was it coincidence or an attempt at irony which saw FIFA’s president twice liken soccer’s world governing body to a ship in the week Belfast celebrated the centenary of Titanic’s completion. The parallel can be developed. For Blatter, another potential iceberg has been bypassed. His lookouts can concentrate again on guarding their captain and his vessel. The man behind the wheel can order full steam ahead to what is his destination’s end; the completion of his term in 2015. Blatter has once again seen off his challengers. His opponent’s have been forced to admit defeat while observers tell us that his continued reign is bad for the game. Nowhere though have we heard a coherent argument as to why Mohammed Bin Hammam would have been a more welcome option or how either man being elected will impact to any extent on the games we watch in our millions on a weekly basis.

There are many issues relating to FIFA and its practices which rightly don’t sit well within many people’s moral compass. However, to suggest that the appointment of one man to the top of the organisation can change the prevailing culture is an unfortunate misinterpretation of how great a challenge it is to undo habits built up over many decades. The problems affecting the sport and the areas deemed to be corrupt have been part and parcel of how football has operated dating back to the days when the governing body had a mere seven members. FIFA’s history and the story of the World Cup is one built upon exploiting and encouraging political influence and leveraging sponsors to supply the funds upon which their financial war chest has been built.

Such influence can be traced all the way back to the first staging of the World Cup in 1934 with Uruguay openly going to whatever lengths were required to obtain the staging rights as part of their centenary independence celebrations. Equal political interference is evident and acknowledged with relation to the tournaments staged in Italy and Argentina in particular. What has changed, and rightly so, is the public’s perception of what is acceptable practice and the extent upon which administrators are held to account by the media. Changing what is deemed acceptable in a 107 year old organisation, one with more member associations than the United Nations has member countries is not going to be possible overnight. It is almost certainly not going to be possible over the term of a FIFA presidency. Equally a breakaway organisation to challenge FIFA is a mere pipedream. Fans, sponsors and broadcasters will follow the glitz and glamour of the spectacle FIFA put on every four years.

Our own representatives acted admirably amid the chaos this week. The FAI would have had better reason than most to oppose Blatter and publicly join those who challenged his tenure in charge. His comments in the aftermath of our World Cup play-off defeat are still fresh in many people’s minds. For the FAI to suggest that we might become team thirty three at last year’s World Cup was an attempt at something somewhere between extreme optimism and extreme desperation. But for the man who prides himself on being the head of the football family to use it so openly to ridicule a member association was an insult. It also served as a stark reminder that football is as much about protecting the big names and established football forces as it is about fair play and equality for less important and commercially exploitable nations.

There is an also a much bigger picture to be considered. In UEFA we have the man seen by many as Blatter’s successor in 2015. In Michel Platini the FAI has an individual with whom a very positive and by all accounts productive working relationship has been built. A man who promised and delivered a major final to Dublin. A legend of the game who speaks with great fondness about his past encounters with great Irish sides and players. To break ranks with UEFA and Platini over last week’s election would have certainly done the Republic more damage than good, especially over an election whose outcome seemed certain long before one of the contenders withdrew. In the long run it serves a small footballing nation in Europe well to have a European in the President’s chair, particularly in the face of a possible challenge to the continent’s sizeable representation when it comes to World Cup Finals qualification. A Mohammed Bin Hammam led FIFA would have presented a genuine challenge to Europe’s power base, the long term losers would be teams seeded furthest down the qualifiers.

The current regime may not be to everyone’s liking but in a larger context it might serve us best.