FIFA: An Organisation a Spiteful, Petty Bourbon King Would Be Proud Of

Louis XIV of France created the famous Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace ( le Galerie des Glaces for those of a francophone disposition). The ultimate monument to the detatched excesses of Divine Rule, this shimmering multi-sided prism of wall height mirrors reflected both the glorious wealth and the ugly warts of the Sun King.

Visitors would have to gaze in wonder at the mirrors, and the implicit riches of their architect, but had to at the same time ignore the fact that 360 degree mirrors showed Louis to be a short, fattening unpleasant gout sufferer.

History lesson over for today (I would highly recommend visiting Versailles if you are ever in Paris). But FIFA's behaviour with regards the World Cup 2018 decision process and the allegations of corruption amongst it's officials is something out of the 18th century school of public behaviour.

Their increasingly hostile attitude towards the England bid team is shockingly baseless. The fact that newspapers, completely independent of the bid and related to it only by the country in which they operate, have researched and published articles criticising FIFA officals and speculating corruption is irrelevant to the 2018 decision making process itself, and should be investigated independently.

But FIFA cry out in outrage, as if doubt and dissenting voices are inherently slanderous, and that if one person believes them then the entire country does too. The peasants are revolting!

The bid team are now frantically trying to save themselves, even proposing that the editor of every newspaper in Britain should write to FIFA to express their support of the World Cup and FIFA's handling of it.

In what ridiculous world do FIFA need to be pandered and complimented like Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder? What a pathetic low to have to stoop to. Why don't they all go to the FIFA throneroom, fall down on their knees and beg forgivenness?

This goes beyond mere pandering to an arrogant FIFA. This whole affair seems to affirm, in FIFA's minds at least, it's position as that of an unimpeachable overlord, with divine right to avoid criticism or regulation.

FIFA basically seem to counter allegations by flounting its wares like an Aberdeen sex worker. They seem to be telling us that they make so much money that a little bit here and there in bribes and corruption can just be swept under the rug. There is so much gold in the vaults that building one little Hall of Mirrors is irrelevant. And yet in the countryside the peasants starve for lack of bread.

FIFA, let's remember, is the governing body of a sport and yet it behaves as if it is on par with the United Nations. It represents all nations that play football, and yet it does not care to stop corruption and make sure money is spent where it could actually make a difference. It is supposed to ensure that the World Cup, the greatest individual sporting event on the planet, is held and ran by the best possible host. And yet the English bid, plainly the best option, is being saboutaged by the affairs of a a couple of Tahitians (For God's sake, if FIFA is a proportional representative body, then why is there any more than one Tahitian in it?).

At the end of the day, who remembers what happened to the Bourbon kings in the end?

(Here's a clue. Listen to Le Marseillaise).

GM