The Kick Project

With news that FIFA bigwigs Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and Jerome Valcke have been "red carded" by FIFA and will have to sit out the next three months, it looks like finally the dead wood is being pruned at the world game HQ. However, worse may be yet come. What can be done to get the people's game back to the people? The current danger is that as the poison is leeched from FIFA, nothing will be left. If corruption is as rife as many - including us here at The Kick Project - believe then more will be shown the door and still more, aware that the gravy train has terminated, will move on voluntarily. The result may well be a vacuum at the heart of the world's most valuable sport. The immediate consequences of this may be no Confederation Championships and no World Cup in three years time or beyond. That's bad enough, but the real concern is who or what will fill this void. There are essentially three likely outcomes. One, would be to hand FIFA over to e...

This is very worrying. We have seen the impact of rapidly rising revenues in cricket on shady, behind the scenes business dealings (read: corruption) and you'd have to be naive to ignore the possibility in football. I dont believe football has a history of match fixing and I am not aware of many, if any examples, at the top international level. So this is a serious turn of events. Apparently, FIFA is  clearly concerned and the Presidential election is very much focussed on the issue. Yet, as this BBC piece reveals, aspects of the problem are largely being ignored,  for reasons that are difficult to fathom. Let's hope it doesn't just become a hot issue until June when the new or incumbent FIFA boss, post election, can put it back in the side netting.