Money’s Love Corruption: For the Good of the Game
Back in November I planned to do (and had begun writing) a piece on the unsettling relationship between Sports Administrators and the sports they run.
Today I find myself returning to that topic except the central theme and character has changed due to the recent occurrences in the football world.
I posted a tweet which read, “This FIFA thing is just another example of how love is exploited. People know FIFA has been shady but their love of football trumped that.”
Responses came quickly to the effect that a person’s love of the sport was pretty much disconnected from FIFA’s actions.
But it isn’t.
It’s actually more like that mind blowing relationship where everyone sees that your lover is milking you, providing for their needs as well as their family and friends while all you think about are those beautiful breakfasts, amazing afternoons and magical nights.
You may even argue that your lover’s “extras” are worth it simply for that.
There’s a song that describes this by the way.
And those “extras” are FIFA and pretty much every other major sporting governing body.
Love is one of the most exploited things in the whole world.
Everything you love comes with a cost.
In most cases, the more you love something the more you’re willing to give it up for it.
So it’s fairly easy for a corporate shark to see the world’s love for football and find a way to make them pay billions of dollars for it.
Don’t think you’ve helped them profit as a fan?
Yes like me the average football fan didn’t know FIFA existed when they first watched or fell in love with football. But ever since I first watched Chelsea v Manchester United in the 1994 FA Cup and chose the ‘Blues” to the antagonistic red, or fell completely in love with the passing and movement of Diego Maradona’s Argentina v Greece in the 1994 World Cup, I’ve become an unwitting member of FIFA’s street team.
Fans are FIFA’s Street Team
Everytime you’ve watched a match, bought your favorite team’s jersey, posted a Youtube clip of your favorite player, engaged in a social media debate about tactics or bought a video game version of the sport you have helped organisations like FIFA boost their ability to market and profit from the game.
They selling it, you buying it.
You’ve made it more alluring for the US, South Africa or the Qatari federation to submit a bid to host the World Cup.
You make it more palpable for those very federations to consider how far they are willing to go; how much of their soul are they willing to give (or souls they’re willing to bribe) to get that what is so loved, and so much of a gold mine.
To their credit though, FIFA has done much of their swindling without doing irreparable damage to people’s interest in the sport. (In some cases they’ve actually helped the sport develop see point 7 in this ESPNFC article.)
Despite news of the FIFA scandal breaking hours earlier, the UEFA Europa League final between Ukrainian fairytale Dnipro and Sevilla was still watched by millions. As will the FA Cup final between Aston Villa and Arsenal on Saturday & Barcelona’s showdown with Juventus in the Champions League final.
That’s more money coming in, for the record.
And where money is, greed and corruption isn’t far behind.
With that point I return to the theme of my original piece, we aren’t always lucky to have corrupted officials in sport administration who manage not to damage the sport.
Closer to home we have the West Indies Cricket Board.
Despite our lowly ranking, the West Indies team remains one of the most loved teams in world cricket.
There’s that word love again.
Especially with the emergence of West Indian superstars like Gayle, Pollard, Bravo and Sunil Narine in the short attention span friendly version of the game Twenty20 cricket, it is easy to make some cash off of the maroon hats.
Hell the BCCI has been making cash off them on the other side of the world.
The difference is, the WICB isn’t as savvy as FIFA in terms of making sure the players don’t have that bitter taste in their mouths after the business is handled.
So instead we get player strikes & abandoned tours. We get to see our superstars become heroes for teams far away from where they are born, yet can’t identify with half the team playing test match cricket for us now.
The TTFF/TTFA s also guilty of this for that matter, as are many sporting bodies in smaller countries/economies.
The reason, most of the people who ascend to these positions understand the business, and see the profits.
Profits that they probably won’t see anywhere else.
But they aren’t in it for the good of the game.
Why?
Probably because unlike the fans and the players who aren’t into the business aspect, they don’t love it.
Plain Talk, Good English
Filed under: Everyday Commentary, Football | Tags: FIFA, TTFA, WICB
Back in November I planned to do (and had begun writing) a piece on the unsettling relationship between Sports Administrators and the sports they run.
Today I find myself returning to that topic except the central theme and character has changed due to the recent occurrences in the football world.
I posted a tweet which read, “This FIFA thing is just another example of how love is exploited. People know FIFA has been shady but their love of football trumped that.”
Responses came quickly to the effect that a person’s love of the sport was pretty much disconnected from FIFA’s actions.
But it isn’t.
It’s actually more like that mind blowing relationship where everyone sees that your lover is milking you, providing for their needs as well as their family and friends while all you think about are those beautiful breakfasts, amazing afternoons and magical nights.
You may even argue that your lover’s “extras” are worth it simply for that.
There’s a song that describes this by the way.
And those “extras” are FIFA and pretty much every other major sporting governing body.
Love is one of the most exploited things in the whole world.
Everything you love comes with a cost.
In most cases, the more you love something the more you’re willing to give it up for it.
So it’s fairly easy for a corporate shark to see the world’s love for football and find a way to make them pay billions of dollars for it.
Don’t think you’ve helped them profit as a fan?
Yes like me the average football fan didn’t know FIFA existed when they first watched or fell in love with football. But ever since I first watched Chelsea v Manchester United in the 1994 FA Cup and chose the ‘Blues” to the antagonistic red, or fell completely in love with the passing and movement of Diego Maradona’s Argentina v Greece in the 1994 World Cup, I’ve become an unwitting member of FIFA’s street team.
Fans are FIFA’s Street Team
Everytime you’ve watched a match, bought your favorite team’s jersey, posted a Youtube clip of your favorite player, engaged in a social media debate about tactics or bought a video game version of the sport you have helped organisations like FIFA boost their ability to market and profit from the game.
They selling it, you buying it.
You’ve made it more alluring for the US, South Africa or the Qatari federation to submit a bid to host the World Cup.
You make it more palpable for those very federations to consider how far they are willing to go; how much of their soul are they willing to give (or souls they’re willing to bribe) to get that what is so loved, and so much of a gold mine.
To their credit though, FIFA has done much of their swindling without doing irreparable damage to people’s interest in the sport. (In some cases they’ve actually helped the sport develop see point 7 in this ESPNFC article.)
Despite news of the FIFA scandal breaking hours earlier, the UEFA Europa League final between Ukrainian fairytale Dnipro and Sevilla was still watched by millions. As will the FA Cup final between Aston Villa and Arsenal on Saturday & Barcelona’s showdown with Juventus in the Champions League final.
That’s more money coming in, for the record.
And where money is, greed and corruption isn’t far behind.
With that point I return to the theme of my original piece, we aren’t always lucky to have corrupted officials in sport administration who manage not to damage the sport.
Closer to home we have the West Indies Cricket Board.
Despite our lowly ranking, the West Indies team remains one of the most loved teams in world cricket.
There’s that word love again.
Especially with the emergence of West Indian superstars like Gayle, Pollard, Bravo and Sunil Narine in the short attention span friendly version of the game Twenty20 cricket, it is easy to make some cash off of the maroon hats.
Hell the BCCI has been making cash off them on the other side of the world.
The difference is, the WICB isn’t as savvy as FIFA in terms of making sure the players don’t have that bitter taste in their mouths after the business is handled.
So instead we get player strikes & abandoned tours. We get to see our superstars become heroes for teams far away from where they are born, yet can’t identify with half the team playing test match cricket for us now.
The TTFF/TTFA s also guilty of this for that matter, as are many sporting bodies in smaller countries/economies.
The reason, most of the people who ascend to these positions understand the business, and see the profits.
Profits that they probably won’t see anywhere else.
But they aren’t in it for the good of the game.
Why?
Probably because unlike the fans and the players who aren’t into the business aspect, they don’t love it.