Tommy Martin: The last thing Irish soccer needs is to get involved in Fifa’s flawed process
Then FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup in Zurich, Switzerland. Picture: Michael Probst
Two camps formed following this week’s announcement that Ireland was considering a feasibility study into possibly, maybe, being involved in a bid to host the 2030 Fifa World Cup.
Those in support took the Oscar Wilde view: Yes, Irish football is in the gutter, but should it not also be looking towards the stars?
The other crowd were like: “Dude, you’re in a gutter.”
Notably, many of the latter group also have the most experience of Irish soccer’s current predicament. For League of Ireland fans, club volunteers and soccer journalists, the idea of riding sidecar in Boris Johnson’s bid to ‘bring football home’ is ludicrous.
In fact, for those familiar with the chronic underinvestment at every level of domestic soccer, bidding for a World Cup is exactly the kind of fur-coat-no-knickers thinking that got us into this mess.
For many though, even the promise of a feasibility study is enough to induce fever dreams of sun-kissed parties with Brazilians while waving inflatable Fyffes bananas.
It is the World Cup, after all. It’s Maradona, it’s Nessun Dorma, it’s never writing off the Germans, it’s Brian Moore bemoaning naive African defending, it’s Diana Ross missing the penalty, it’s a nation holding its breath. Can we not dream?
And imagine the Brits got it without us!
The magical qualities of the World Cup make it perfect fodder for the snake oil merchants of the political class, many of whom have been to the forefront this week. That Johnson threw his considerable weight behind a bid should immediately raise suspicions. Bring Football Home joins a list of populist Boris slogans which includes Take Back Control, Get Brexit Done and Shake Hands With Everybody.
Johnson’s Irish equivalents were quick to join in, with cross-party agreement that this was, indeed, the perfect sort of fantastical nonsense with which to distract a bedraggled, weary populace.
Given the enthusiasm of our leaders, there is also clearly a bigger political game at play, some sort of post-Brexit diplomatic choreography: We help Boris keep the plebs onside and in return the shelves at Marks & Spencers stay stocked.
New FAI CEO Jonathan Hill alluded last week that Irish involvement would bring our patented roguish charm to a bid tainted by Britain’s current isolationism and the failed English campaign for the 2018 tournament.
And we will not be found wanting, even if it is in the form of misplaced optimism rather than world-class infrastructure. After all, we are the true romantics of major tournament bids.
No matter how many times our hearts have been broken in the past, we still come back for more.
The humiliations of Euro 2008 and the 2023 Rugby World Cup are fresh in the memory. Yet mention the possibility of Paraguay v Iran at Semple Stadium and we are up for it again.
But aside from the feeling that we’ve been burned before, and that Irish soccer should be focusing its energies elsewhere, this bid also suffers guilt by association.
Remember, the first soundings on these shores were made by John Delaney during the dog days of his regime. In fact, one of the responsibilities of Delaney’s proposed job as FAI executive vice-president was to act as chief glad-handler for the 2030 bid.
So if you want to follow this story to its logical conclusion you can trace a direct line from John Delaney, through Boris Johnson and eventually get all the way to Gianni Infantino, the current Fifa president. Three right boyos.
And if we are guilty of short-term memory loss in being eager for more bidding pain, then so is anyone who goes near a Fifa World Cup bidding process.
Yes, yes, we know this was an organisation marked by what US Federal Prosecutors in 2015 called “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted corruption”. We know that ongoing investigations allege millions of dollars of bribes and kickbacks linked to the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments and that most of the men on the Fifa executive committee that chose Russia and Qatar have been either banned, jailed, or charged with corruption if they haven’t died in the meantime.
We know about Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini, Jack Warner and all the other members of that disgraceful cavalcade.
But all that’s changed now, hasn’t it?
Maybe, but it is worth mentioning that Infantino, the great Fifa reformer, is currently under criminal investigation by a Swiss federal prosecutor, accused of secret, undocumented meetings with attorney general Michael Lauber while the latter investigated Fifa corruption in 2016 and 2017.
Totally normal!
Fifa is also accused of interference in the independent running of the March 12 election for president of the African confederation, CAF, in order to ensure their preferred candidate takes control. This was after the previous incumbent, Ahmad Ahmad, an Infantino loyalist, was arrested in Paris for, you’ve guessed it, corruption and financial crimes.
And Fifa has also been busy in Trinidad & Tobago, ensuring a preferred nominee took power there by allegedly withholding crucial funding when a rival won the position instead. The Caribbean and African federations are seen as powerbases for Infantino in his plans to organise an expanded Club World Cup and, of course, win himself another term.
Those who wade voluntarily into the shark-infested waters of Fifa politics do so at their own peril. The voting process for the 2030 World Cup has changed since the scandalous victories of Russia and Qatar. The winning bid will now be chosen by an open vote of all 211 members of the Fifa Congress.
But anyone thinking our Irish wiles alone will help sway the electorate hasn’t been paying attention. The last thing that Irish soccer needs right now is to get involved with a process synonymous with dodgy dealing, financial irregularities and political machinations — frankly, we’ve had enough of that here to last a lifetime.
Whatever your feelings about samba-dancing down on O’Connell Street or reaching a hand out to Brexit Boris, not a cent of public money should be spent on schmoozing this lot, at least until Irish soccer gets its feet out of the gutter.
