A Football Report

By Soraya Soemadiredja, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Final part in AFR’s FIFA Election coverage preview.

Joseph S. Blatter has been in charge of world football since 1998. He wants to be in charge for only four more years and promises to leave after this. In the time he has been in charge, he has seen countless FA and Confederation heads rotate, three World Cups on three continents, and far too many scandals come and go, but has an uncanny knack for batting away every criticism of his tenure from left, right and centre field.

Some of his more noteable accomplishments and faux pas include: publicly announcing he believed that Women’s Football would benefit from women playing in shorter shorts, bringing the World Cup to the African continent and thereby truly making the “world’s game” global, bringing FIFA a 1.2 billion USD in reserves, as well as being implicated in the multi-million dollar ISL sports management bribery case.

So, have we seen the best he’s got to offer, or does he have more up his sleeve for his next four years?

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By Soraya Soemadiredja, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Part Two of Three Parts in AFR’s FIFA Elections coverage.

It would be difficult to call Mohammed Bin Hammam of Qatar an outsider as the FIFA incumbent’s sole challenger in the race to lead the world’s largest sport’s governing body. A member of the FIFA Executive Committee since 1996, he’s been the Asian Football Confederation president for the past nine years. He took office not long after the continent hosted its first ever World Cup in South Korea and Japan.

Under his presidency, the AFC Champions League was restructured into the format that we watch today. He is part of the FIFA Goal Bureau, providing financial support for member associations, and was an instrumental figure to bringing, somewhat controversially, especially in light of recent news, the Middle East’s first World Cup.

As for the FIFA presidency, Bin Hammam’s campaign centres around change. But is it really change for the better or for the sake of something different, or is it neither a change nor better?

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By Soraya Soemadiredja, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Part One of Three Parts in AFR’s FIFA Elections coverage.

All over the world, on every continent, it’s election fever. You just have to turn on any news channel, open any website or read the paper to know that. FIFA, who frequently behave like a nation unto itself, like many other political entities, also have scheduled elections for the first of June. With all the international turmoil in the world, and the wrapping up of many football leagues for the summer on the sporting front, anyone would be excused from having forgotten this little date, despite the near constant carousel of sporting news headlines that relate to a “FIFA scandal!” which is infinitely more interesting than “FIFA Elections” as a headline.

Under fire from critics from all nations about a great deal of things ranging from lack of transparency, lack of technological progress of the game, lack of support for the Women’s Game and emerging nations, corruption scandals befalling many Ex-Co members and everything involved with the World Cup bidding, hosting and organising, football broadcasting rights worldwide and every topic in between. The election of a new president may not have any impact on improving the conditions of the world game for the most marginalised or the biggest issues surrounding it.

While you and I have no say in this FIFA business, we can all agree their decisions have greatly impacted the way our beloved sport is played, and it is interesting to see how football politics works these days. This Election: ‘11 series is here to remind us how things work in that place they call “The Home of Football” and what the deal is with the two horse race between incumbent Joseph “I own football” S. Blatter and challenger Mohammed “let’s throw bills at ‘em” Bin Hammam.

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Are campaigns just for show for European footballers?

Soraya Soemadiredja, writing from Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Dear European Footballers,

If you, your colleagues or your clubs are going to have numerous campaigns being all pedantic about how fans shouldn’t be racist to footballers, how football is fighting to stamp out racism in football and in Europe, then it would be good to try not to undermine those causes and campaigns by being racist yourself.

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The AFR team is sharing its diverse perspectives on the drama that unfolded yesterday in Switzerland in a series of posts throughout the next day or so. The series features perspectives from our writers who call places like Montreal, Paris, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, London, Manilla, Boston, and Lisbon home. We continue with the perspective of Soraya Soemadiredja, a recent graduate of the University of Toronto now living in Manila. She didn’t hold back. Enjoy.

Russia and Qatar? “YES! FIFA proves once again they’re all about the money!” And, more specifically: “Are you surprised your general culture of neo-liberalism has destroyed your own shot of hosting a World Cup in favour of two countries about which you westerners have unjustified and generally unfair stereotypes and generalisations?”*

In all seriousness, with Qatar’s bid I have a sincere and perhaps somewhat naïve hope that the technology and stadiums they promised for the “sustainability of soccer” will be able to be exported (at a reasonable price!) to developing countries where there is a need and a desire for it, and do so in an (albeit expensive) less environmentally destructive manner, since it’s clear the country has the financial capacities for such research and development. The Middle East has always been a region with populations of voracious football consumers and this will bring Middle Eastern culture to the forefront and allow a new region to contribute to the history of the World Cup while sharing with the world what they are.

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Soraya Soemadiredja, Manila.

Despite several allegations of corruption and breaches of ethics, there are now less than 8 hours left for the bidding nations to convince FIFA to give them the ball to host the World Cup. So yesterday, the 2022 World Cup bidding nations presented their final push for the position and as we write/you read, the 2018 World Cup bidding nations will make their last arguments before the Executive Committee will vote. All 22 (24 committee members, minus the two who were suspended) of them then will vote, whereby a successful host nation should get at least 12 of these votes.

So we’ll go through the 2022 World Cup bids first, in case it has slipped your mind between all the other really important world events. It will from here on be dubbed the “Asia or Pacific Ocean bids”, viewed through the eyes of the easily distracted. (Seriously, for such an exciting event, the lead up to who gets to host it is really. Very. Dull.)

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Soraya Soemadiredja, Manila.

South-East Asia is football mad, and collectively one of the largest consumers of European football* in the world. This December, it’s all about Asia though, and we’ll see all the big names in their region performing for their countries. The ASEAN Football Federation’s Suzuki Cup will commence in South-East Asia, co-hosted by Indonesia and Vietnam. The Cup has been around since 1996, originally called the Tiger Cup and come the eve of the new year, will another side be in possession of the coveted cup? In Group A, we have Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Laos. In Group B, we have Vietnam, Singapore, Myanmar and the Philippines. Read on for a lightning quick introduction to each of the contenders.

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