#fifamafia

After the drama of the past week with seven FIFA officials being arrested by the FBI on ‘claims’ of corruption and Sepp Blatter’s suspicious win at the FIFA elections, I would like to talk about the spirit of the World Cup and just football in general and how the beautiful game in which we all love is going downhill.

Football has been a past time for over a hundred years now, the game is full of elegance and grace but nowadays money is the centre of it all. FIFA’s slogan ‘For the Game, For the World’ is hypocritical, it is not for the game, it is for the money, it is not for the world, it is for the rich and corrupt businessmen, is this what we want future generations to see football as? A sport full of millionaires making money from bribes?

The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, it is not just for 32 countries to come together to play for the biggest prize of them all but more importantly it is to come together to forget about other problems in the world and enjoy the game that is football. With now countries threatening to pull out of Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, the true spirit and beauty of the biggest festival in football is gone.

Past tournaments such as Germany 2006 and Brazil 2014 has provided unique carnival atmospheres that have been welcoming for thousands and thousands of football fans to visit. With no disrespect to Russia and Qatar, isn’t it ironic that FIFA has given these two countries the right to host the biggest sporting tournament in the world? FIFA has a firm stance against homophobia and racism, haven’t FIFA seen what happens at Russian league football matches with the amount of racist remarks being hurled at players? Examples include racist remarks towards Zenit St. Petersburg’s Hulk and a few years ago when Brazilian legend Roberto Carlos had bananas thrown at him. Countries like Qatar are firm against the LGBT community, will FIFA intervene and do something about this? No, they will just let it slide through and not care because they have bucks to spend for themselves instead of improving the situation.

Something else that is shocking is the death toll of builders who have left their homes and families to build these stadiums for Qatar 2022. 1200 is the number of deaths so far, and the tournament is still seven years away, FIFA should hold their heads in shame and be disgraced that they have allowed this many deaths just for the sake of a football tournament. 1 death is far too many, let alone 1200.

Let’s hope that national teams’ FA’s can do something about this and boycott the next to World Cups, for all of the associations that voted for Blatter, you should all hold your heads in shame.