Yet another Fifa balls-up

Can somebody please explain how Fifa goes about running “world” football?

If it truly claims to represent the interests of world football, why is it that Europe and the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) seem to get a better deal than the rest of the world?

First we have to look at the World Cup. Fifa says it’s a “World Cup” but close to half the participants are from Europe. Why? Uefa has 53 member associations and they will have 13 representatives out of the 32 participants at the 2010 World Cup while Africa has 55 member associations yet they get a paltry 6 increased by 1 from 2006 because South Africa are the hosts, which means there would have been 5 if it was hosted on a different continent.

Africa has two more member associations than Europe, so shouldn’t they be getting close to what Europe is getting if not more? South America has 10 member associations and they get 4 automatic spots and one play-off spot against a team from North America, which could mean they get to have 5 participants, the same number as Africa.

Asia also gets a raw deal. They have a 46 member association yet they only have four automatic spots and one play-off spot against a country from the Oceania Football Confederation, which has 16 member associations and no World Cup berth, the very same reason that pushed Australia to join the Asian Football Confederation. If it’s supposed to represent the world, how does Fifa justify all these differences?

The play-offs coming up in November also go to show that Fifa are out to protect the giants of the world game. They waited until the qualifications were almost over and when they had already seen which countries were going to contest the play-offs, that’s when they decided they should be seeded, a decision which was taken in September. They made the decision after Portugal and France came second best to lesser football nations. So far, France is facing the Republic of Ireland, Portugal vs Bosnia, Ukraine vs Greece and Russia will play Slovenia. When Fifa announced this decision, a lot of people were against it because it gives the countries high up the Fifa rankings a chance to be at the World Cup at the expense of countries lower down the rankings.

Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni said: “This [World Cup] draw must be open. We must give the opportunity to everyone. I thought it was going to be an open draw and in the future, they have to think about the rankings and change the system. But business is business. The big teams command Uefa in the rankings table. At the moment, it is difficult to change but they must.”

The media outcry that followed was because Fifa left it too late before they informed the participants. They should have been informed of these intentions much sooner. To avoid this in future Fifa ought to state the full procedures and rules for all parts of World Cup qualification before the qualification tournament begins.

The hosting of the World Cup is also another burning issue. The World Cup started in 1930 and Africa only gets to host it 80 years later although we have to take out 1942 and 1946 because of World War II. Asia also got its chance for the first time in 2002 when Korea and Japan hosted. After the controversy surrounding Germany’s victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 World Cup, they introduced the continental rotation policy which they have abandoned apparently because they wanted to avoid a similar scenario in the bidding process for the 2014 tournament where Brazil was the only official bidder. But then is that the only reason for this change of policy or is it because they want the World Cup to go back to Europe as soon as possible?

Next year and 2014 will be the first occasion where consecutive World Cups were held outside Europe. What would be wrong with the tournament going to all corners of the world, even if only one country from that continent bids? Would it be so bad if it stays away from Europe for four to five consecutive tournaments?

Fifa has many flaws but these are some of the burning issues that need to be addressed so that one day a country from Africa or Asia can win the World Cup.