[Text/Observer Network columnist Frederick]
At the end of the year, there is probably no hotter topic in the sports industry than the football World Cup.
Even if the 2022 Qatar World Cup is held at the end of the year for the first time after the restructuring of the modern World Cup, the topicality and popularity of the World Cup are by no means comparable to other sports events in the face of competition from other professional sports events at the same time.
Among them, there are not only the desire of various countries for football, the "war in peacetime", the struggle of football stars around the world for the highest honor of their careers, but also a series of gossip that may not sound pleasant-bullying, labor rights, bribery scandals, and so on.
And all this is inseparable from the "giant" or "troll" who stands behind the World Cup and even the entire world football - the International Football Federation (FIFA Chinese for short).
In 2022, this 118-year-old "old man" or "old ghost" can still burst out a power that is not inferior to football itself, or even beyond football, and has repeatedly become the focus or talk of the world.
First, the initial history of "weak, pitiful and helpless"
Every sport in the world has its own global international federation, but of all the international federations of sports, FIFA must be the most powerful of them.
As the leader of football, the most commercially developed sport, FIFA does not have to rely on the IOC everywhere like those sports organizations that are in the "market-oriented desert" and cannot support themselves - on the contrary, the IOC needs to ask FIFA everywhere in order to cram as many football superstars as possible in its own Olympic Games.
As the leader of football, the world's largest, widest audience, and the development of related industries in various countries is "rugby-shaped", FIFA does not have to be like FIBA and other organizations, although the commercial development of its sports is good, but the vast majority of resources are almost all concentrated in the hands of a single national sports league, so that the "international league" has to see the face of a "national league" to act.
But even FIFA, which seems so strong at the moment, has a start-up history that can be described as "weak, pitiful and helpless".
Modern football began in England, and the earliest football association in history, the English Football Federation ("FA"), and the earliest "international competition" in history, the match between England and Scotland in 1872, was also born in England. Therefore, in the early days of the development of modern football history, the United Kingdom played a pivotal role in the development of international football, so that when the world first hoped to establish an international organization responsible for international football competitions, the United Kingdom was considered to be the leader of the "Universal Postal Union" of football.
However, the high-spirited empire and its football leader, then FA president Lord Kinnauld, rejected the idea of an FA-led "International Football Association".
In this situation, continental European countries, already dissatisfied with the British, decided to start anew, and saw FIFA, founded in 1904, as a product of the fight against British "football hegemony" (its founders included France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland).
However, although founded in the context of "against the British", FIFA at its inception had neither the talent nor the money nor the experience to run professional competitions, and was completely unable to organize international football events independently, nor could it stand tall in front of other sports organizations such as the International Olympic Committee.
FIFA's "beginning of everything" also depends on the "joining" of the truly "football-savvy" British in 1905. In the early days, FIFA's competitions, including but not limited to Olympic football events, were almost entirely run by the FA, so much so that after the outbreak of World War I, the British refused to play against "enemy countries" such as Germany, and withdrew from FIFA, FIFA was "paralyzed" for a time.
What made FIFA the football trust it is today, instead of "subservient" to the British, as its sister organization FIBA, which needs to look at the NBA's face everywhere, are two truly "famous FIFA" leaders, Jules Remy (whose name is still mistranslated as "Jules Remit" in most Chinese media) and Joao Aranvirge.
Jules Remy (left) and João Aranwiger (right)
The former has greatly expanded FIFA's "geographical territory", gathering talents from all over the world to join FIFA, getting rid of FIFA's long-term dependence on the FA's talents; The latter greatly expands FIFA's "commercial territory", greatly enriches FIFA's pockets through the commercial development of international football events, and avoids the emergence of project "national oligarchs" like the four major sports leagues in the United States through the vigorous promotion of the "internationalization" of football - "World football can only have one Chen Haonan, and this Chen Haonan is our FIFA".
II. "Social Groups" and Peculiar "Member Units"
ALTHOUGH FIFA HAS THE WORD "INTERNATIONAL" IN ITS NAME, ITS LEGAL NATURE IS NOT AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION LIKE THE UNITED NATIONS, AND FOR THE NATURE OF FIFA, ARTICLE 1, PARAGRAPH 1, OF PART I OF ITS OFFICIAL CONSTITUTION (FIFA STATUTES) "GENERAL PROVISIONS" CLEARLY STIPULATES THAT FIFA IS A SOCIAL ASSOCIATION, THAT IS, AN ASSOCIATION, ESTABLISHED IN ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLE 60 OF THE SWISS CIVIL CODE.
It is precisely because it is a society rather than an international organization, so FIFA takes "member units" rather than national organizations as the basic component unit, the establishment of this "membership system" and the acceptance of "member units" are basically taboo, and also reflect a series of strange phenomena about FIFA's "membership system":
1. FIFA member units may not carry any country name and do not indicate their country affiliation.
Although it is an "international" association, FIFA members can not carry any country name ("nation"), for example, the name of the English Football Association does not have a country name or even a region name, and its registered name is "Football Association", that is, "Football Association", "English Football Association" is actually a derivative translation of the Chinese with a determiner.
2. FIFA's membership units can be one political entity or include multiple political entities.
Or take the United Kingdom as an example, the four main components of the British mainland island of Great Britain - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland football federations, have joined FIFA as independent members, in addition, a series of British overseas territories (such as the British Virgin Islands, British Bermuda, etc.) have also joined FIFA as independent members, but FIFA, there is no member called "Britain" or "United Kingdom".
But it would also be one-sided to assume that each political entity would join FIFA as an independent member. For example, the Crown Dependencies owned by the King of England, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, are in fact political entities with the same political status as areas under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom such as England, but these three islands do not join FIFA independently, but accept the jurisdiction of the English Football Federation.
The Isle of Man Football Association, founded in 1890, was one of the first football associations in history, even before FIFA, but it did not join FIFA independently, but was under the jurisdiction of the FA
3. Football organizations that are not within the geographical scope of FIFA members may also participate in competitions organized or supervised by FIFA.
For example, Monaco Football Club in Monaco is not a member of the Monaco Football Association, but a registered member of the French Football Association - the Monaco Football Association does not belong to FIFA, so Monaco clubs only need to hold France's thigh if they want to participate in various international competitions, and do not need to encourage the Monaco Football Association to join FIFA first.
This is very different from "sister organizations" such as FIBA. In the case of FIBA, Article 12.1 of the FIBA General Constitution clearly states: "The entities of national member associations (including leagues and clubs) may carry out corresponding activities only within the geographical and regulatory framework of their own national member associations." Article 12.4 also states: "A National Member Association and its clubs or leagues shall not participate in or organize competitions located in the territory of another National Member Association without the authorization of another National Member Association and FIBA." ”
III. "Societies" Above the Law
However, although FIFA is a so-called society, it has the ability to make rules above the law, even the laws of the Swiss country in which it is located.
According to general jurisprudence, "'law' refers to legal norms, so that prohibitive laws may be contained not only in law, but also in statutes, autonomous regulations, Community provisions and customary law ... However, the statutes of associations do not fall into this category, since, like private individuals, associations are not vested with legislative powers. [1] But FIFA (and its brother UEFA, which loves and kills with all its kinds) does not care about this, and since its inception it has formulated a series of provisions that clearly conflict with the laws of various countries, especially the general principles of civil law, and thus have been subjected to the "iron fist" of "true powers" such as the European Court of Justice.
The most classic case of FIFA's "above the law" is the "mandatory transfer fee system" before 1996.
Prior to 1996, according to FIFA regulations, all transfers in the football market, including those without a contract, were required for new clubs and players to pay transfer fees to the original club.
However, this provision is simply absurd - if the player as a laborer and the club as a labor employer no longer have a labor relationship, even if he cannot renew his contract or get compensation, he has to pay the club a "transfer fee".
This makes one wonder how this kind of "legislation", which clearly violates the principles of general labor law and even general civil law principles, was enacted, and how it has been implemented around the world for so long.
FIFA's "deed of sale for transfer fee" system was finally broken in late 1995 in the Belgian Football Federation et al. v. Bosemann case[2]. Due to the requirement of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union that "the free movement of workers within the Union shall be guaranteed"[3], the Court of Justice of the European Union rounded its arm and gave FIFA a big mouth,[4] and formally abolished the original "mandatory transfer fee" requirement of FIFA and UEFA in the Boseman Act of 1996 - from then on, players without contracts can transfer with peace of mind like other workers, without the need to first find a sum of money to the original club.
4. Money empire and corruption experts
Aranviger's unprecedented development of international football in the middle of the last century made FIFA the most profitable sports organization in the world, within the scope of "international associations", not even "one of them". And these football gold dollar storms have also made a lot of money for the workers in FIFA.
In 2011, FIFA released a financial report on its governing board, in which 35 FIFA management committee staff members (only FIFA President Blatter was full-time) earned a total of nearly US$30 million in a year,[5] in addition to the "secret bonuses" totaling US$4.4 million after the World Cup in South Africa. [6] In this way, FIFA's senior officials, each of whom is rounded up per capita, can be called a "million-dollar baby".
But such a lucrative income has not stopped senior FIFA officials from making money. Back in the Aranvirge era, Aranvirge and his former son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, the former president of the Brazilian Football Federation, received millions of dollars in "favor fees" from the World Cup's commercial operating unit, International Sport and Leisure. Of course, this number and the later Sepp Bratby, who casually accepted a few of his "small targets", are small witches! [7]
Screenshot of the BBC report
Fifth, the model of "bullying the soft and fearing the hard"
When the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out in 2022, a series of actions by FIFA and its brother UEFA caused a lot of controversy - they banned the Russian Federation Football Association and the Russian national football team from participating in all activities related to FIFA and UEFA, including but not limited to World Cup qualifications.
This move also caused great controversy: when Saddam, who was still a "lackey of US imperialism" at that time, launched the Iran-Iraq war, FIFA did not ban Iraq; When the United States launched the 2003 Iraq War, FIFA did not ban the United States; When Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen, FIFA did not ban Saudi Arabia...
Of course, it is not like some marketing numbers in the mainland that FIFA is a lackey of "Western countries", and it is really biased to think that FIFA is a lackey of "Western countries" and only dares to oppose Russia and never the United States and Britain and their lackeys. After all, when the Soviet Union, the "West's" rival, invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, or when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, FIFA and its brother UEFA were still "big farts dare not put one".
According to this point of view, FIFA is actually a model of indiscriminate bullying of the soft and afraid of the hard (and also afraid of money bags), and the same is in the face of the hairy bear, daring to ban Russia and not the Soviet Union, because FIFA knows that Putin's tank can not drive Switzerland no matter how much he drives, but Leonid Ilyich's tank is not necessarily.
FIFA: "I was terrified. ”
6. Boast of experts
Despite all the pickling of things, it still doesn't stop FIFA from thinking it's a good deal. In order to celebrate their feats, they even filmed a big scam that told their own story in 2014, oh no, the blockbuster "United Passions."
Unlike other international sports organizations that cut historical materials and shoot promotional films to promote themselves, FIFA wants to make "Passion League" as a Hollywood blockbuster. To this end, FIFA spared no expense and spent a lot of money to invite the "big-nosed lover" Gérard Depardieu (as Jules Remy), "sea pianist" Tim Ross (as Sepp Blatt), and Sam Neill (as Aranwiger) who braved "Jurassic Park" to create a "blockbuster" that he considered to be a "blockbuster", and the final result was -
"Passion League" grossed $160,000 at the worldwide box office at a cost of no less than $20 million, including $607 in North America. It is said that when FIFA put a lot of effort into putting the film in Hollywood, it attracted only two audiences.
Not only that, "Passion Alliance" also scored IMDB 2.1 points, Rotten Tomatoes 11%, Metacritic 1/0.7 points, enough to go down in the history of human cinema - please don't think that the IMDB score of 2.1 / total score of 10 is much higher than the other two websites is that IMDB is not objective, "Passion Alliance" can score 2.1 on IMDB because the minimum IMDB score is 2 points:
7. Bedbug League – FIFA's challenger
Seeing this, you may have questions: "Since FIFA is so bad, and FIFA is just a Swiss society with free entry and exit, can football associations around the world resist such a mess of FIFA and organize a new international football organization together?" ”
The answer is, yes, but the vast majority of countries around the world and their football associations don't want to do so.
Monaco, mentioned above, is one such example.
Monaco is a sovereign state, but when the Fédération Monégasque de Football was officially established in 2000, it did not join FIFA or UEFA, but joined the so-called "Nouvelle Fédération-Board" ("Nouvelle Fédération-Board") and later accepted the "Confederation of" Independent Football Associations, CONIFA).
This "Federation of Independent Football Associations" is currently the only challenger to FIFA, which has held so-called "VIVA World Cup", "CONIFA World Cup" and other "international events".
However, from a Chinese perspective, I would call them "Bug Alliance" and "Little Bug Alliance".
The "Bed Bug Alliance" and the "Little Bug Alliance" claim to be "charities that accept ethnic minorities and cultures around the world", but in fact they are the separatist forces of the world's major sovereign countries and express their evil political demands with football. Monaco and Kiribati are the only two sovereign states in these two institutions, and in addition to this, the "bedbugs" attracted by the "Bedbug Alliance" are all separatist forces and even terrorists around the world.
The members of the "Bugs Alliance" include separatist forces against the permanent members of the UN Security Council, such as "Xinjiang independence" and "Tibet independence" aimed at splitting China, as well as "Kadiccadia independence" and "Hawaiian independence" in the United States, and "Ositanian independence" in France, as well as separatist forces against other regional powers, such as the "Chamelia" independence movement against Greece and the Rohingya independence movement against Myanmar.
Seeing the above, you can probably understand why no one in normal will withdraw from FIFA and "start over", right?
Resources:
[1] Hans Blox and Wolf Dietrich Valcker: General Treatise on German Civil Law, translated by Yang Dake, Chinese Minmin University Press, 2014, p. 9.
[2] For a more detailed report on the causes and consequences of the Boseman Act, see M. Phillips, Jean-Marc Bosman's fight against depression and alcoholism, The Sun, March 21, 2011. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3480363/Jean-Marc-Bosmans-fight-against-depression-and-alcoholism.html
[3] The translation here is from Cheng Weidong et al., trans.: The Foundation Treaty of the European Union – Revised, Social Literature Publishing House, 2010, p. 69.
[4] Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association，ASBL and Others v Jean-Marc Bosman and Others，C-415/93, Judgment ECLI:EU:C:1995:463, 15/12/1995.
[5] STEFAN BARMETTLER. FIFA bonuses: 30 million, http://www.bilanz.ch/unternehmen/fifa-boni-von-wegen-30-millionen.
[6] Sports Sun. Report claims FIFA bosses secretly doubled their salaries，http://www.sportssun.com/index.php/sid/223159751/scat/c4cdc9be967f45f9/ht/Report-claims-FIFA-bosses-secretly-doubled-their-salaries.
[7] Jack Rollin. 2015 FIFA corruption scandal, https://www.britannica.com/event/2015-FIFA-corruption-scandal.
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