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CFetters_Nacho_Lover
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FIFA was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, its membership now comprises 209 national associations. Member countries must each also be members of one of the six regional confederations into which the world is divided: Africa, Asia, Europe, North & Central America and the Caribbean, Oceania and South America.
Although FIFA does not control the rules of football (that being the responsibility of the International Football Association Board), it is responsible for both the organisation of a number of tournaments and their promotion, which generate revenue from sponsorship. In 2013 FIFA had revenues of over 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, for a net profit of 72 million, and had cash reserves of over 1.4 billion U.S. dollars.[3]
Reports by investigative journalists have linked FIFA leadership with corruption, bribery, and alleged vote-rigging pursuant to the election of FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the organization's decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively. These allegations led to the indictments of nine high-ranking FIFA officials and five corporate executives by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges including racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. On 27 May 2015 several of these officials were arrested by Swiss authorities, who were launching a simultaneous but separate criminal investigation into how the organization awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Those among these officials who were also indicted in the U.S. are expected to be extradited to face charges there as well.[4][5][6]
History[edit]
Main article: History of FIFA
The need for a single body to oversee association football became apparent at the beginning of the 20th century with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in the rear of the headquarters of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques at the Rue Saint Honoré 229 in Paris on 21 May 1904.[7] The French name and acronym are used even outside French-speaking countries. The founding members were the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain (represented by Madrid Football Club; the Spanish federation was not created until 1913), Sweden and Switzerland. Also, that same day, the German Association declared its intention of affiliating through a telegram.[1]
The first president of FIFA was Robert Guérin. Guérin was replaced in 1906 by Daniel Burley Woolfall from England, by then a member of the association. The first tournament FIFA staged, the association football competition for the 1908 Olympics in London was more successful than its Olympic predecessors, despite the presence of professional footballers, contrary to the founding principles of FIFA.[dubious – discuss]
Membership of FIFA expanded beyond Europe with the application of South Africa in 1908, Argentina and Chile in 1912, and Canada and the United States in 1913.
During World War I, with many players sent off to war and the possibility of travel for international fixtures severely limited, the organisation's survival was in doubt. Post-war, following the death of Woolfall, the organisation was run by Dutchman Carl Hirschmann. It was saved from extinction, but at the cost of the withdrawal of the Home Nations (of the United Kingdom), who cited an unwillingness to participate in international competitions with their recent World War enemies. The Home Nations later resumed their membership.
The FIFA collection is held by the National Football Museum at Urbis in Manchester, England.
FIFA's supreme body is the FIFA Congress, an assembly made up of representatives from each affiliated member association. Each national football association has one vote, regardless of its size or footballing strength. The Congress assembles in ordinary session once every year, and extraordinary sessions have been held once a year since 1998. The congress makes decisions relating to FIFA's governing statutes and their method of implementation and application. Only the Congress can pass changes to FIFA's statutes. The congress approves the annual report, and decides on the acceptance of new national associations and holds elections. Congress elects the President of FIFA, its General Secretary, and the other members of FIFA's Executive Committee on the year following the FIFA World Cup.[8]
FIFA's Executive Committee, chaired by the President, is the main decision-making body of the organisation in the intervals of Congress. The Executive Committee is composed of 24 people: the President, 8 Vice Presidents, and 15 members. The Executive Committee is the body that decides which country will host the World Cup.
The President and General Secretary are the main officeholders of FIFA, and are in charge of its daily administration, carried out by the General Secretariat, with its staff of approximately 280 members. Sepp Blatter has been FIFA President since 1998. FIFA's worldwide organisational structure also consists of several other bodies, under authority of the Executive Committee or created by Congress as standing committees. Among those bodies are the Finance Committee, the Disciplinary Committee, and the Referees Committee.
FIFA headquarters
The laws that govern football, known officially as the Laws of the Game, are not solely the responsibility of FIFA; they are maintained by a body called the International Football Association Board (IFAB). FIFA has members on its board (four representatives); the other four are provided by the football associations of the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, who jointly established IFAB in 1882 and are recognised for the creation and history of the game. Changes to the Laws of the Game must be agreed by at least six of the eight delegates.
FIFA commits itself to constantly improving the sport of football. The FIFA Statutes form the overarching document guiding FIFA's governing system. The governing system is divided into separate bodies that have the appropriate powers to create a system of checks and balances. It consists of four general bodies: the congress, the executive committee, the general secretariat, and standing and ad-hoc committees.[16]
Discipline of national associations[edit]
FIFA frequently takes active roles in the running of the sport and developing the game around the world. One of its sanctions is to suspend teams and associated members from international competition when a government interferes in the running of FIFA's associate member organisations or if the associate is not functioning properly.
A 2007 FIFA ruling that a player can be registered with a maximum of three clubs, and appear in official matches for a maximum of two, in a year measured from 1 July to 30 June has led to controversy, especially in those countries whose seasons cross that date barrier, as in the case of two former Ireland internationals. As a direct result of this controversy, FIFA modified this ruling the following year to accommodate transfers between leagues with out-of-phase seasons.
Main article: 2015 FIFA corruption case
In May 2006 British investigative reporter Andrew Jennings' book Foul! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote-Rigging and Ticket Scandals (Harper Collins) caused controversy within the football world by detailing an alleged international cash-for-contracts scandal following the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner International Sport and Leisure (ISL), and revealed how some football officials have been urged to secretly repay the sweeteners they received. The book also alleged that vote-rigging had occurred in the fight for Sepp Blatter's continued control of FIFA.
Shortly after the release of Foul! a BBC television exposé by Jennings and BBC producer Roger Corke for the BBC news programme Panorama was broadcast. In this hour-long programme, screened on 11 June 2006, Jennings and the Panorama team agree that Sepp Blatter was being investigated by Swiss police over his role in a secret deal to repay more than £1m worth of bribes pocketed by football officials. Lord Triesman, the former chairman of the English Football Association, described FIFA as an organization that "behaves like a mafia family", highlighting the association's "decades-long traditions of bribes, bungs and corruption".[24]
All testimonies offered in the Panorama exposé were provided through a disguised voice, appearance, or both, save one; Mel Brennan, formerly a lecturer at Towson University in the United States (and from 2001 to 2003 Head of Special Projects for CONCACAF, a liaison to the e-FIFA project and a 2002 FIFA World Cup delegate), became the first high-level football insider to go public with substantial allegations of greed, corruption, nonfeasance and malfeasance by CONCACAF and FIFA leadership. During the Panorama exposé, Brennan—the highest-level African-American in the history of world football governance—joined Jennings, Trinidadian journalist Lisana Liburd and many others in exposing allegedly inappropriate allocations of money at CONCACAF, and drew connections between ostensible CONCACAF criminality and similar behaviours at FIFA. Since then, and in the light of fresh allegations of bribery and corruption and opaque action by FIFA in late 2010,[25] both Jennings and Brennan remain highly critical of FIFA, with Brennan calling directly for an alternative to FIFA to be considered by the stakeholders of the sport throughout the world.[26]
In a further Panorama documentary broadcast on BBC One on 29 November 2010, Jennings alleged that three senior FIFA officials, Nicolas Leoz, Issa Hayatou and Ricardo Teixeira, had been paid huge bribes by FIFA's marketing partner ISL between 1989 and 1999, which FIFA had failed to investigate. He claimed they appeared on a list of 175 bribes paid by ISL, totalling about $100 million. A former ISL executive said that there were suspicions within ISL that the company was only awarded the marketing contract for successive World Cups by paying bribes to FIFA officials. The programme also alleged that another current official, Jack Warner, has been repeatedly involved in reselling World Cup tickets to touts; Sepp Blatter said that FIFA had not investigated the allegation because it had not been told about it via 'official channels'.
The programme also criticized FIFA for allegedly requiring World Cup host bidding nations to agree to implement special laws for the World Cup, including blanket tax exemption for FIFA and sponsors, and limitation of workers' rights. It alleged that governments of bidding nations are required to keep the details of the required laws confidential during the bidding process; but that they were revealed by the Dutch government, which refused to agree to them, as a result of which it was told by FIFA that its bid could be adversely affected. According to the programme, following Jennings' earlier investigations he was banned from all FIFA press conferences, for reasons he says have not been made clear; and the accused officials failed to answer questions about his latest allegations, either verbally or by letter.
British Prime Minister David Cameron and Andy Anson, head of England's World Cup bid, criticized the timing of the broadcast, three days before FIFA's decision on the host for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, on the grounds that it might damage England's bid; the voters included officials accused by the programme.[27][28]
In June 2011, it came to light that the IOC had started inquiry proceedings against FIFA honorary president João Havelange into claims of bribery. The BBC Panorama programme alleged that the Brazilian accepted a $1 million 'bung' in 1997 from ISL. The Olympic governing body said "the IOC takes all allegations of corruption very seriously and we would always ask for any evidence of wrongdoing involving any IOC members to be passed to our ethics commission".[29]
In a 2014 interview, American sports writer Dave Zirin said greed, corruption, nonfeasance and malfeasance are endemic to FIFA leadership, and that FIFA should be abolished for the good of the game. He said that currently FIFA is in charge of both monitoring corruption in soccer matches, and marketing and selling the sport, but that two separate organizational bodies are needed: an organizational body that monitors corruption and match-fixing and the like, and an organization that's responsible for marketing and sponsorships and selling the sport. Zirin said the idea of having a single organization that's responsible for both seems highly ineffective and detrimental to the sport.[30]