THE accusation outgoing Fifa president Sepp Blatter slipped his would-be replacement a £1.3million backhander is just the latest to bring the beautiful game into disrepute.
Writer, zoologist and TV presenter Desmond Morris believes the only way to repair football’s battered image is to scrap the World Cup.
Morris, a renowned expert in human behaviour, also wrote The Soccer Tribe, a study of football and its fans.
Here, he explains why we’ve got to bin the world’s biggest sporting event and gives his alternative competition for the future of football.
THE time has come to scrap the World Cup in order to save football.
After a slew of controversies, Sepp Blatter has now been accused of making a secret payment to Michel Platini, the head of Uefa, that was “unfavourable” to his organisation.To make it worse, the payment was made in 2011 for work done nine years previously.
It’s yet another disgrace that makes it look as though the game is run by corrupt money men.
Any faith in Fifa to run our game fairly has long disappeared.
All of Fifa’s troubles stem from one stupid rule: That countries put in bids to host the next World Cup and Fifa then decides which of these bids to accept.
That system is so obviously susceptible to corruption that it should have been abandoned years ago.
An alternative would be the method used by the Eurovision Song Contest, in which the winning country becomes the host of the next one.
All it needs is for the eight World Cup winning countries — England, Germany, Brazil, France, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Uruguay — to get together and set it in motion.
As they are, inevitably, the world’s major footballing countries, their combined departure from Fifa’s World Cup would render that contest rather pointless.
If they did this, the world’s most popular sport would replace its crowning glory with a new international tournament which is not under the control of Fifa — which would be free of any accusations of skulduggery.
I’d call it The Global Cup.
Wouldn’t it be great if the English FA was the first to walk away from the World Cup? Greg Dyke, the FA chairman, is probably the best possibility of someone doing it. He’s obviously fed up with Blatter, and Fifa, and seems like a good bloke.
He’s certainly got his head screwed on, so let’s hope he reads this.
I can’t see why he, and England, wouldn’t pursue it. All we’d need then is one or two more to join us, and suddenly it could actually happen.
It seems so simple to me, and with merit. Countries spend millions bidding for the World Cup, so clearly people desire it — so why on earth shouldn’t the winners get it?
Back in the 1970s I made a study of football that resulted in the book The Soccer Tribe, in which I examined the qualities that made this particular sport the most popular on the planet.
No other sport arouses such intense passions worldwide.
It deserves something better than a ruling body that is allegedly so corrupt.
How the Global Cup could work...
— As Germany won the last World Cup, they would be invited to host the first tournament.
— The winner would then host the next contest, and so on. If the winner declined the award — which is highly unlikely — the hosting of the next tournament would be offered to the runner-up.
— Only countries that have previously won a World Cup would be eligible to become full members.
— Conveniently there are eight: Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Uruguay.
— The heads of each of the football organisations in these eight countries would together comprise the organising committee, instead of Fifa.
— Each of these countries would automatically qualify and one would be present in each of the eight groups in the finals.
— The remaining 24 nations would be the winners of the usual zonal knockout contests.
Source:The Sun-UK
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