FIFA
The Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA, French for International Federation of Association Football) is the international sport governing body governing body of association football, also known as soccer. Its headquarters are in Zürich, Switzerland, and its current president is Sepp Blatter. FIFA is responsible for the organisation and governance of football's major international tournaments, most notably the FIFA World Cup, held since 1930.
History
The need for a single body to oversee the worldwide game became apparent at the beginning of the 20th century with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to seven other European countries to band together to form this association. FIFA was founded in Paris on May 21, 1904 — the French name and acronym persist to this day, even outside French-speaking countries. Its first president was Robert Guérin.
FIFA presided over its first international competition in 1906, but this met with little approval or success. This, in combination with economic factors, led to the swift replacement of Guérin with Daniel Burley Woolfall from England, by now a member association. The next tournament staged, the football competition for the 1908 Olympics in London was more successful, despite the presence of professional footballers, contrary to the founding principles of FIFA.
Membership of FIFA expanded beyond Europe with the application of South Africa in 1909, Argentina and Chile in 1912 and the United States in 1913.
FIFA however floundered during World War I with many players sent off to war and the possibility of travel for international fixtures severely limited. Post-war, following the death of Woolfall, the organisation fell into the hands of Dutchman Carl Hirschmann. It was saved from extinction, but at the cost of the withdrawal of the Home Nations, which include England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who cited an unwillingness to participate in international competitions with their recent World War enemies.
The FIFA collection is held by the National Football Museum in England.
Other tournaments
Aside from the World Cup and Olympic competitions, FIFA organises World Championships for players at under-17 level and under-20 level. In addition to this, it has introduced the Confederations Cup, a competition for the champions from each confederation (plus the hosts and World Cup Winners), every four years. Originally organised by and held in Saudi Arabia every two years as the King Fahd Cup, it now serves as a prelude to the World Cup, with the World Cup host staging the tournament as a test of facilities. The current Confederations Cup champions are Brazil who defeated Argentina 4-1 in Germany.
With the development of the women's game, FIFA introduced the Women's World Cup in 1991 and the Women's Under-20 World Championship in 2002 (started as U-19, is now U-20 from 2006). An U-17 women's championship will start in 2008.
FIFA's only major club competition is the FIFA Club World Cup. It was slated as the natural progression of the European/South American Cup (which itself ran under a variety of names) to include clubs from all confederations. The tournament was not warmly received on its debut in 2000 and its 2002 edition was cancelled. Three years later, with a shorter revised format, the tournament returned for its 2005 edition in Japan.
FIFA also presides over World Cups in modified forms of the game including beach football (the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup) and futsal (the FIFA Futsal World Championship).
Laws of the game
The laws of football that govern the game are not solely the responsibility of FIFA; they are maintained by a body called the International Football Association Board (IFAB). FIFA has a 50% representation on its board (four representatives); the other four are provided by the football associations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, in recognition of the unique contribution to the creation and history of the game of the nations now comprising the United Kingdom.
Structure
FIFA is an association established under the Laws of Switzerland. Its headquarters are in Zurich.
FIFA´s supreme body is the FIFA Congress, an assembly made up of a representative from each affiliated national federation. The Congress assembles in ordinary session now once every year, and extraordinary sessions have been held once a year since 1998 & now as and when requested. Only the Congress can pass changes to FIFA´s by-laws.
Congress elects the President of FIFA, its secretary-general and the other members of FIFA´s Executive Committee. The President and secretary-general are the main officeholders of FIFA, and are in charge of its daily administration, carried out by the General Secretariat, with its staff of 208 members.
FIFA´s Executive Committee, chaired by the President, is the main decision making body of the organization in the intervals of Congress. FIFA´s worldwide organizational 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, the Referee´s Committee, etc.
Aside from its worldwide institutions (presidency, Executive Board, Congress, etc.) FIFA has created confederations which oversee the game in the different continents and regions of the world. National federations, and not the continental Confederations, are members of FIFA. The continental Confederations are provided for in FIFA´s by-laws. National federations must claim membership to both FIFA and the confederation in which their nation is geographically resident for their teams to qualify for entry to FIFA's competitions (with a few geographic exceptions listed below):
Nations straddling the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia have generally had their choice of confederation. As a result, a number of transcontinental nations including Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan have chosen to become part of UEFA despite the bulk of their land area being in Asia. Israel, although lying entirely within Asia, joined UEFA in 1994, after decades of isolation by many of its Middle Eastern neighbours. Kazakhstan was the latest nation to make the move from AFC to UEFA, in 2002.
Guyana and Suriname have always been CONCACAF members despite being South American countries.
Australia joined the AFC from the OFC in 2006. No team from the OFC is offered automatic qualification to the World Cup; instead the winner of their section must play a play-off against a CONMEBOL side, a hurdle at which Australia have traditionally fallen. Perhaps ironically, Australia successfully qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup by winning just such a playoff in a penalty shootout against Uruguay, just a few months after the clearance to move was granted.
In total, FIFA recognises 207 national federations and their associated men's national teams as well as 129 women's nationals teams; see the list of national football teams and their respective country codes. FIFA has sometimes been credited with yeilding more influence over certain nations than the United Nations. The FIFA World Rankings are updated monthly and rank each team based on their performance in international competitions, qualifiers, and friendly matches. The rankings went through a revision in 2006. There is also a world ranking for women's football, updated four times a year.
Recognitions and awards
FIFA awards, each year, the title of FIFA World Player of the Year to the most prestigious player of the year, as part of its annual awards ceremony which also recognises team and international football achievements.
As part of its centennial celebrations in 2004, FIFA organised a "Match of the Century" between France and Brazil, the most successful national teams of the last decade. In addition, it commissioned arguably the most famous player ever, Pelé, to produce a list of the greatest players of all time. This list, the FIFA 100, included 50 players who were still actively playing at the time of publication one of whom was female - Mia Hamm), and 75 retired players (including himself and one woman - American star Michelle Akers- but not including deceased players). The list was originally planned to be just 100 players long but Pelé is understood to have found it too hard to choose just 100 and so the list actually names 125 players.
Commercial activities
FIFA announced in April 2004 that it is expecting to earn $144 million profit on $1.64 billion in revenue between 2003 and 2006 (the 4 year cycle including the 2006 World Cup).
FIFA has licensed its name and copyrighted content to computer game designer EA Sports to provide a number of football simulation games for the PC and various game consoles. A new installment in this FIFA series of games is introduced each year, and additional versions are released with World Cup branding to coincide with these tournaments. 2005 saw an additional "urban football" video game franchise, FIFA Street and its sequel FIFA Street 2. In August 2006 EA & FIFA announced that they would be extending their exclusive deal for another four years, covering the 2010/11 season [1].
Allegations of financial irregularities
In May 2006 British investigative reporter Andrew Jennings' book Foul (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 ISL, and revealed how some football officials have been urged to secretly repay the sweeteners they received. The book also exposed the vote-rigging that went on behind closed doors in the fight for Sepp Blatter's continued control of FIFA. Jennings also revealed in articles for the Daily Mail (London) that a FIFA vice-president sold thousands of 2006 World Cup tickets on the black market, profiting over $1 million.
Nearly simultaneous with the release of Foul was a BBC television expose by Jennings and BBC producer Roger Corke for the BBC news programme Panorama. In this hour-long programme screened on June 11, 2006, Jennings and the Panorama team submit that Sepp Blatter is being investigated by Swiss police over his role in a secret deal to repay more than $2 million worth of bribes pocketed by football officials.
All testimonies offered in the Panorama expose were done via disguise of voice, person, or both, save one; Mel Brennan, a university professor in the United States, former Head of Special Projects for CONCACAF and a FIFA 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. His book, The Apprentice: Tragicomic Times Among the Men Running - and Ruining - World Football is due out in late 2006 or early 2007.
Further reading
- Paul Darby, Africa, Football and Fifa: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance (Sport in the Global Society), Frank Cass Publishers 2002, ISBN 0-7146-8029-X
- John Sugden, FIFA and the Contest For World Football, Polity Press 1998, ISBN 0-7456-1661-5
- Women's Soccer: The Game and the Fifa World Cup, ed. by Jim Trecker Charles Miers, Universe 2000, Revised Edition, ISBN 0-7893-0527-5
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ FIFA & EA For Another Four Years - TotalGaming.net news, 14 August, 2006
- Jennings, Andrew, FIFA chief's World Cup Ticket scam; Daily Mail (London), September 12, 2006, Page 80.
External links
- FIFA web site
- [1]- alleged FIFA corruption
- [2]- new book on FIFA
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