Sports minister Shane Ross has an ambitious project on his hands. He has set out to reform the Football Association of Ireland, just a few short years after the scandal at the Olympic Council of Ireland which resulted in the apparently successful restructuring of that organisation. The Government, via the Sports Council and the National Lottery, dishes out €125m per annum of public money to sporting bodies and cannot be indifferent when evidence of mismanagement or corruption begins to emerge.

Ross will struggle with reform of the FAI, because the problems in Irish football are reflected all over the world. The administration of the beautiful game has been infected from the top down, via the European confederation UEFA and the world governing body FIFA, both riddled with corruption for decades.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is still scheduled to be held in the scorching desert sheikdom of Qatar, where every single stadium is being constructed from scratch

Former presidents and top executives of both organisations are, to coin a phrase, helping the police with their inquiries and several operatives of national associations are already in jail. Leading figures have been replaced but there is little evidence of fundamental reform.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is still scheduled to be held in the scorching desert sheikdom of Qatar, where every single stadium is being constructed from scratch. The “country”, with an area half the size of Munster, is so small that some of the stadiums will be walking distance from the next one. Oil-rich Qatar is not a country, it is a family business.

FIFA divides the world into regional confederations

The selection of Qatar to host the World Cup, the biggest of all sporting occasions, was and remains a scandal. The tournament, normally held in June and July, has been rescheduled for November on medical advice, disrupting the entire football calendar. Last weekend, the midday temperature in the capital Doha reached 40°C.

FIFA divides the world into regional confederations, the most important of which is UEFA, headquartered alongside FIFA in tax-friendly Switzerland, not a coincidence.

Reform

There is scant evidence that UEFA has been reformed, nor is there any reason to believe that resolving the problems at the FAI will benefit from UEFA’s wise counsel. Many other European countries have endured scandals comparable to what has emerged at the FAI. Even in Germany, assumed too readily to be a paragon in matters of corporate governance, the last two presidents of the DFB, the national association, have resigned under a cloud.

UEFA has been in the news again these last few weeks over the selection of venues for the two showpiece finals of the European season

The DFB is the largest national football association in the world.

UEFA has been in the news again these last few weeks over the selection of venues for the two showpiece finals of the European season, the Europa League decider and the Champions League final. The first saw two London clubs, Arsenal and Chelsea, meet in Baku in Azerbaijan. Flight time from London to Baku is five hours and 30 minutes, the same as to Gander in Newfoundland. There are no direct flights and the press was full of stories about the extraordinary, and expensive, feats of Londoners in getting to the game. If you took a cycle ride from Arsenal’s north London stadium to Chelsea’s ground to the southwest of the city, a small detour would take you past the magnificent Wembley stadium, roughly halfway between the two. A few days later, the supporters of another pair of English teams – Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool – were invited to find their way to Madrid for the Champions League final.

County final

Last October, Dr Crokes of Killarney met South Kerry in the county final and the county board, in a flash of extraordinary logistic foresight, fixed the game for Tralee. If UEFA had been in charge, the Kerry county final would have been in Belfast.

In 2011, the Europa League final was fixed, before the competing teams were known, for the Aviva stadium in Dublin, trumpeted at the time as an “achievement” by the FAI. Two teams from northern Portugal, Porto and Braga, got through to the final and the Ballsbridge area of Dublin was duly swamped by hordes of bemused Portuguese football fans, as well as platoons of chauffeur-driven UEFA worthies.

As the Arsenal and Chelsea fans, relieved of €1,000 and more for their trip to the borders of Asia, made their way back to London, it would be interesting to know how many UEFA freeloaders were boarding executive jets at Baku airport for the next knees-up in Madrid.

Air travel

Aside from costs inflicted on supporters, there is an obligation on public bodies to avoid needless air travel and the resultant carbon emissions. Minister Ross and his EU colleagues should take a careful look at corporate governance in UEFA.

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