How the football insanity of Fifa helped wreck a small English club « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

By Tony Attwood

Here’s a thought and a half.  Plymouth Argyle is bust, bankrupt, kaput.  So far gone they have brought in Mr Ridsdale who is currently facing a few charges by the authorities in relation to the small matter of his running of affairs at Cardiff City.

Now think of this: In backing England’s bid to host the World Cup in 2018 Plymouth Argyle spent £1.2m on plans for a new stadium.  Not on a new stadium, but plans for one, so that the world cup matches could be seen to be played in all parts of the UK.

Money that could have meant that Plymouth would have been saved, and almost certainly Mr Ridsdale would not be there.

The problem with insane and corrupt Fifa is that this is just one local tragedy among millions.  The problem for English football is that the FA knew how insane the Plymouth expenditure was yet they set up a system to encourage it.  They knew how corrupt Fifa was and is, and they carried on being part of it, accepting the Fifa bidding process, instead of pulling out and saying to the rest of the world – “fancy an alternative?”

That alternative could have included the clubs and players, so that some sort of sanity could have been restored to football, with the endless fight between internationals matches and club games resolved once and for all.  But the truly awful FA stayed in bed with the truly awful Fifa, until it was far too late.

As things stand Qatar is taking legal action against the Fifa secretary general for saying  Qatar purchased the 2022 World Cup, everyone is suing Lord Triesman and the FA, and the evil Blatter actually said “Crisis? What is a crisis?….  I am sure that the day after tomorrow at the congress we will prove we can solve the problems – if there are any – inside the congress.”

For him there is no crisis, since he will be elected unopposed this week to be the Fuhrer of Fifa.  Members of the Fifa ethics committee will give him the nod, which just about says it all.

Some of this is amusing.  Jack Warner of all people is trying to show that everyone else is corrupt but not him.   Meanwhile photos of the cash bundles paid to the  Bahamas Football Association by president of the Asian Football Confederation have been released.    Coca-Cola, one of the corporations that actually finances the whole fiasco said “We have every expectation that Fifa will resolve this situation in an expedient and thorough manner.”

Yes, well, I think it is Pepsi for me from now on.

It seems some Middle East papers have said that the fall of Fifa is like the attack on governments in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and the like.   Since Egypt is now run by the military, and the others are still fighting, it doesn’t hold out much hope for football.

And just in case you think anyone is going to come out of this clean, here’s just one of the allegations doing the rounds.  This is from Jack Warner…

“I indicated that at the Miami Concacaf Congress on 3 May Mr Blatter made a gift of $1m to Concacaf to spend as it deems fit. This annoyed [Uefa] president Michel Platini who was present and he approached secretary general Jerome Valcke complaining that Mr Blatter had no permission from the finance committee to make this gift to which Jerome replied that he will find the money for Mr Blatter.

“I also indicated … Fifa through Mr Blatter organised gifts of laptops and projectors to all members of the Caribbean and no objections have been made … to date.”

Of course everyone has known about this for years – and in our own small way we’ve been pushing the story here; there are Fick Fufa stories going back to our origins.

But nothing has been done because

a) The FA, along with its allies in the Royal Family and the House of Lords have been chums with Fifa all along.

b) The clubs have not seen fit to take on Uefa and run their own show.

Either or both of those would be preferable to having this bunch of crooks travelling the world, taking money, and through their actions encouraging the bankrupting of small clubs like Plymouth.

Half the penalties in Arsenal games were wrongly given this season!