Frankly FIFA, I don’t give a damn

Jacob hat nicht nur den besten Text zum Montagsspiel geschrieben, der geschrieben wurde. Nein, er hat noch davor einen Text über die Wahl der Austragungsorte für die Weltmeisterschaften 2018 und 2022 geschrieben, für dessen verspätete Publikation wir uns entschuldigen möchten.
Steffi & Sebastian

In Gone With The Wind there is a scene where, having lost all her former riches, Scarlett O’Hara tears down the beautiful green drapes that are all that is left of her furnishings to make a new dress. The idea is that she will be better able to get the 300 dollars she needs to save the family home if she has all the trappings and the appearance of wealth. It is a scene not disimilar to that of the English FA in Zurich last week as they desparately tried to impress the FIFA executive commitee members of the worth of their bid to land the 2018 World Cup. In the Guardian, David Conn pointed out that as David Cameron’s government slashed school sports funding back in the home of football, he was in a five star Zurich hotel, shaking hands with some of the most odious and dictatorial scumbags in the world.

But none of this was a surprise. Germany know very well about the morals of the FA when it comes to landing the biggest fish of all, the World Cup. When England promised Germany their full support for the 2006 tournament in exchange for Germany’s for EURO ’96 it was a deal made with crossed fingers. A gentlemans agreement only works between gentlemen, and the FA were certainly not that. They went for 2006 all the same, fuck the agreement. The obvious ending being that Germany became hosts and the English slunk home with their heads in their hands wondering why everybody thought they were so arrogant.

They always said that this time was different. The moral highground was there for the taking, and the bid had received the best possible reception. It was, finally, time for football to come home. To come home to a country where sport could help to eradicate society’s evils. Where Violence in the grounds had been all but banished and where the seeds of a new football had taken root in the fertile ground of that capitalists wet dream, the Premiership („the Greatest League on Earth“ SKY TV always tell us).

But, surprise, surprise, it didn’t work. I wrote a piece before the announcement of the winners saying how I didn’t want England to win the bid. It was just too unedifying to be cosying up to these guys who could make the Catholic Church look like a progressive, morally sound organisation. Where was the shame, the humility? To what ends would we go to win the bid, to make the big money? The BBC had broadcast a documentary on the eve of the decision accusing four further members of the executive committee of accepting bribes, but what was Cameron’s response to this? It was „irresponsible“ of the BBC to harm the bid so. That two voters were already suspended because of similar accusations in the English press was seen as more than unfortunate. They could have been useful for the bid. For the BBC to be called unpatriotic and unhelpful was as fucking disgraceful as it was untrue. Although the previous experiment had shown that moral bankruptcy didn’t necessarily mean winning, why change now?

But the deal had already gone down. So it was with a huge surprise that I found myself seething with rage that Russia had won. Not because I don’t think that they equally deserve to host a World Cup (they do, and have never had one before…. no problem there) but because we looked like such pitiful losers. Apparently David Beckham is still a footballer, but he is closer to a handpuppet, let out of his Gucci leather lined box when hands need shaking, when Sepp wants to feel like royalty. The presense of „Dave“ Cameron and Prince William was worse. These fuckers represent everything that is wrong with modern football in England, a representation of the gormless, money and celebrity driven Premiership that thinks football was invented in 1992, and they neither like nor know anything about the national sport other than the fact that to associate oneself with it lends a certain credibility.

I don’t need to spill more bile about the choice of Qatar to host in 2022. This was a decision that could only have come from FIFA, but the very fact that our elected leaders (not you, William. Sorry mate you don’t count as such) saw fit to hang the BBC out to dry was sickening. Could we not be proud of our press and it’s pursuit of the truth? Of course every good Conservative knows the BBC is a pseudo communist agency undermining the idea that morals and ability come second to the school one attended but it was just incredibly sad that it should have come to this. To feel the need to attack the countries most internationally respected body was inevitable, but it also still didn’t work as a tactic. Cameron still came home looking like a loser, and the FIFA executives are still happy now that it has been proved that their endemic corruption is deemed as being completely irrelevant. Life in their Swiss dream factory goes on unencumbered by trivial things like taxes and responsibility. So, let them have the World Cup wherever they like. Let it become even more bloated, and hang the consequences. Fuck them. To paraphrase Rhett Butler’s payoff line to Scarlett at the end of Gone With The Wind, „Frankly FIFA, I don’t give a damn“.