Federation International de Football Association - Essay Example

?Bandar Alqahtani Christopher Dolle ESL 105 Dec. 7, FIFA Introduction FIFA stands for Federation International de Football Association, which was founded in 1904. This is the governing of football, beach soccer, and futsal associations at an international level. FIFA has its headquarters situated at Zurich, Switzerland, with a compositional membership of 209 national associations. FIFA’s roles include organizing for major tournaments in football, as well as reviewing whether these tournaments comply with the FIFA rules. The current FIFA president is Sepp Blatter. Formation of this governing body was facilitated by the urge for one overall body to supervise the many football associations. Its founding member countries wereSpain, the Netherlands, Germany Denmark, and France. This paper seeks to discuss FIFA, by looking at its structure and the factors that affect its functioning. Specifically, the paper will discuss the role of politics in FIFA and vice versa. Structure of FIFA The supreme body of FIFA is composed of an assembly of representatives of each member association and is referred to as the FIFA congress. Legally this governing body followed the guidance of the laws of Switzerland during its establishment. The FIFA congress is tasked with many functions, including, election of its off9icials like president, general secretary, and members of the executive committee. The executive committee performs the decision making of the body’s affairs and the president chairs it. Other committees involved in FIFA functions include the disciplinary committee, finance committee, and the referees committee among others. FIFA statutes also provide for the formation of confederations from all over the world to assist in monitoring football and its associations in different regions. FIFA also performs football ranking of different countries based on their international, friendly and qualifier matches performances. As a motivational stunt, FIFA awards best performances in different categories, including best players of the year, FIFA presidential award just to mention a few. FIFA and Politics It is without a doubt that FIFA has enjoyed tremendous success despite occasional challenges along its way. It has exercised immense professionalism and maintained the football standards of the world to an acceptable standard. However, similar to other international organizations, FIFA is not short of political influence, both from within and outside. Politics can affect FIFA operations, and subsequently football quality and operations, either way. In the positive aspect, politics from outside can help by instilling policies that will ensure football and sports in general are governed well. Negatively, outside political influence can push for implementation of policies that do not favor football, as is the case with most countries in the world. On the other hand, internal politics within the governing body also posses both negative and positive effects on football and sports. Such internal conflicts include battle for election positions, issuance of contracts to different countries, and disagreements during decision making among the executive committee among others. These aforementioned issues lead to corruption, loss of trust in the governing body and wrangles in the governing body, all of which affect football quality negatively. In most countries, football associations, which have affiliate membership to the international governing body, FIFA, are marred by politics. While the officials of these football associations take their time to solve their petty issues, the football fraternity is neglected. As a result, most players end up missing important football matches that would otherwise improve their international FIFA ranking. This then affect the country’s politics negatively since it influences the foreign policies concerned with international and local networking through sports. To illustrate this is an example of the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation team (Gomez & Bordadora 1). This six-member team performed well and won five gold and two silver medals when they travelled to Florida for the world championships. However, the team did this despite the fact that both the Philippine Olympic Committee and the Philippine sports commission declined to support them financially. The team received heroes’ welcome from the Philippine president, Benigno Aquino III who vowed to separate sports and politics. From this example, the impact of politics in sports can be deduced. If the Dragon Boat Federation Team had given up on sports after the sports commission and Olympic committee disappointed them, the story would be completely different (Gomez &Bordadora1). Apart from losing their chance to display their talents at the international front, the team could also have missed representing their country at the world championships. With their fantastic performance, the country improved in their international ranking on the sport, which would not have happened otherwise. Most of the sports associations utilize all excuses in their sleeves to ensure players are not supported. Politicians, to acquire political advantages like votes and public support during elections, have also used sports. In addition to this, politicians, to air their policies have used sports events. An example is South Africa during the Olympic Games, which was banned by the IOC after political protests from terrorist groups, banana republics, and super powers made the sports stage their arena. Other countries have also seen the Olympic Games stadia including Moscow, Canada, and even in Los Angeles (Lichtig 1). Another factor affecting football associations, FIFA included, is corruption (Lichtig 1). Most football associations are marred by corrupt officials who take bribes to award contracts, in addition to embezzling association funds, which are meant for running football. This has brought a lot of debate in the media, eroding the public’s faith in the governing body. Unfortunately, this problem is not only in the international governing body but also in its regional subsidiaries. Example here is Argentina, a country that has made its international mark in football due to its over the top performance in football (Towson 2). However, massive corruption has soiled the country’s political front which subsequently affects its football quality, as well as other sports (Paradiso 64). Joining Argentina in these corruption claims have been many countries from Africa and other third world countries. However, some of the developed countries are not left out from this list. Recommendations There is a great need to find solutions to the problems caused by political influences in football governing bodies, as well as the play itself.Solving these problems require a lot of input from all sectors, including the government, the governing body, football associations and even the public. Some recommendations that can assist in bringing back the honor to sports associations and governing bodies are discussed below. Separation of politics and sports Many emphases have been developed to rid football associations and sports in general of political influence. Many political leaders and even presidents have condemned the manipulation of sports associations by politicians. An example is President Aquino III, who swore that he would separate the two aspects. This will see governing bodies run independently of politics. This is, however difficult, but achievable (Lin, Lee, & Nai 1). In addition, FIFA should separate its administrative and elective activities from the governance of football tournaments and other events. Favorable government policies Governments of various states should make it their mandate to pass and implement laws that will positively influence football and other sports. This can be achieved through funding of players and construction of sports stadia that match the international standards. Failure to do this will make the governing body’s work difficult, even impossible since FIFA cannot work effectively without supporting policies. Killing Corruption This vice brings with it a negative force in the normally positive game. Corrupt association officials should be sacked and penalized for their malpractices. In addition, FIFA operations like election of officials and issuing of contracts should be done in a transparent manner. Conclusion The association between sports and politics is not all bad. Sports have promoted the outlook of many countries in international levels and earned some politicians favor (Lin, Lee & Nai 24). On the other hand, some policies implemented by politicians have positively affected football. Works Cited Gomez, Carla P., and Norman Bordadora. "Aquino Vows to Rid Sports of Politics." McClatchy - Tribune Business NewsAug 13 2011. ProQuest. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. http://search.proquest.com/business/docview/883230327/141B7BE4E1025571D9C/1?accountid=45049 Lichtig, Toby. "The Politics of Sports; 'Barbaric Sport' Offers an Ideological Case for the Loathsomeness of Competitive Athletics." Wall Street Journal (Online)Jun 14 2012. ProQuest. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. http://search.proquest.com/business/docview/1020364880/141B75414A05FE189BE/20?accountid=45049 Lin, Chien-Yu., Lee, Ping-Chao and Nai, Hui-Fang. Theorizing the Role of Sport in State-Politics. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Science, Vol. 1. No. 1. 2009. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. http://web.nchu.edu.tw/~biosimulation/journal/pdf/vol-1-no01/vol-1-no-1b-0004.pdf Paradiso, Eugenio. "Corruption and Politics in Argentine Soccer." Order No. MR63643 Dalhousie University (Canada), 2010. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. http://search.proquest.com/business/docview/609428462/141B7BE4E1025571D9C/18?accountid=45049 Townson, Nigel. Sport and Politics. Bucharest: Cavallioti Publishers. 1997. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~rosenl/sports%20Folder/Sport%20and%20Politics%20Kings%20and%20Countries.pdf Read More