The Bosman ruling, which acted as a Trojan Horse for the formation of mega clubs, is the primary reason for this at the highest level. UEFA are powerless to intervene. Add in the TV money, which has caused wage inflation, and you have teenagers looking for a lucrative deal at a big club after one successful season. Historically, it has been significantly worse in the lower levels of football because UEFA poured large sums of money into the CL (beginning in the mid-1990s) to make it the monster it is today, with no regard for the impact it would have on those smaller leagues. I also come from a small country where television money and season tickets can never make a significant difference. I saw how the CL money gradually widened the gap between the one team that won title after title and the others who couldn't catch up (often with disastrous financial consequences that threatened their very existence).
Infantino planning to sell stakes in the World Cup to investors | Scrapped
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The Bosman ruling, which acted as a Trojan Horse for the formation of mega clubs, is the primary reason for this at the highest level. UEFA are powerless to intervene. Add in the TV money, which has caused wage inflation, and you have teenagers looking for a lucrative deal at a big club after one successful season. Historically, it has been significantly worse in the lower levels of football because UEFA poured large sums of money into the CL (beginning in the mid-1990s) to make it the monster it is today, with no regard for the impact it would have on those smaller leagues. I also come from a small country where television money and season tickets can never make a significant difference. I saw how the CL money gradually widened the gap between the one team that won title after title and the others who couldn't catch up (often with disastrous financial consequences that threatened their very existence).
This perspective should basically never be forgotten but always is on this place and the Y.N.W.A forum (because both clubs grew fat on it)
Brilliant article from Martyn Ziegler. That's Sports journalist of the year wrapped up
That's a good summary of all the shit Infantino pulled during this recent tournament alone and how he long lined everything up to sell out the stakes in the tournament in secret. It's mindboggling how much he got away with before those plans got leaked and people finally started proper rebelling.
If it represents 100 times more people then yes, it is fairer. A per captia system is fairer than one where entities of various representativity levels are equal.
Each country only has one team though with a vote representing a team. Why should it represent the population? What's the reason for that?
This isn't about national teams. FIFA and UEFA members are FAs, not national teams. FAs work for organized Football which is made of registered players, those are the people represented and the clubs they play for, largely amateurs.
Knowing that, an example that I gave earlier is that France has roughly 2.5m registered players, Belgium has 450k. When you give the same weight to the French FA and the Belgium FA, you essential create a situation where 1 belgian registered players is worth 5.5 french registered players.
While 1 vote per FA is simple and straightforward, it's not actually fair, nor is it representative.
Ziegler is one of the rare good ones.
He's also done some good reporting on the City charges, highlighting the absurdity of people saying it's impossible to write about it without being slapped by City's lawyers.
Do you honestly feel that it's fair that Spain and Brazil have the same voting power as Anguilla and Guam? What's the reason for that?
It makes sense if they thought that it was about national teams.
This is not entirely true. Below is an excerpt from the English FA's website.
https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/what-we-do/fa-strategy-2024-2028
Football Associations are way more than organized football and registered players.
And FIFA is way more than the World Cup every 4 years. Excerpts from FIFA's Vision 2020-2023 document...
https://publications.fifa.com/en/annual-report-2020/the-global-game/the-vision-2020-2023/
So FIFA and FAs impact and duty go beyond professional players. A representation system dependent on professionally registered football players would fall short of the missions of FIFA and continental organizations and national FAs.
The population argument is just a suggestion. If you can't see past the big/strong vs. small/weak thing, which has been Infantino's agenda since day one to accumulate power for himself, and understand that the current system encourages block voting based on financial patronage rather than merit, serious reform will never happen.
Do you honestly feel it is fair that I and Elon Musk have the same voting power? Should his vote not be weighted by the influence and wealth and accomplishments he has compared to me? Shouldn't the US have way more voting power at the United Nations compared to the Netherlands? (Ignore the Security Council's existence for the purposes of this analogy)
And I'm all for benevolent dictatorships, and think the cleanest solution is a supreme ruthless dictator who's first act of power would be to impale Infantino on a log, and then do away with patronage based votes and actions, only acting in the good of the sport worldwide. But the current democratic setup is all about assuming every entity at the table is equal and letting ideas win instead of forcing them through because of outsized influence and power.
It's entirely true. I didn't say that they can expand on it. The people that are absolutely represented are registered members, then there are elections with various mandates that can had a range of missions but even then the people leading it are elected to do so.
Edit: For context, with the FFF there is a weighted system for amateur clubs it's simple so I will use that as an example. Clubs have weighted voices:
Clubs with 11 to 250 registrations have 1 vote.
Clubs with 251 to 500 registrations have 2 votes.
Clubs with 501 to 800 registrations have 3 votes.
Clubs with 800 or more registrations have 4 votes.
For Professional clubs, the total of professional clubs bring 1 vote but Ligue 1 clubs are given the same share of 60% of the total and the rest gets 40%. IIRC there is currently 54 professional clubs.
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FAs work for more than organized football. They work for the entirety of football in their countries.
I don't even think they hold elections for FA executives, they seem to be hired/appointed: https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/who-we-are/the-fa-management
But their duty goes beyond the interests of registered football members.
It has always been like this though. We are just talking about this because of the extreme avarice of Infantino.
Merit is rewarded by trophies on the pitch. Spain and France and England and Argentina and others are more than well rewarded, for their excellent football development strategies as executed by their FAs. That does not mean they alone, or disproportionately, get to dictate the direction of football or how football is advanced worldwide amongst professionals and amateurs, men and women.
And I'm all for ensuring that FAs worldwide are staffed with true guardians of the game of football, who are not interested in money beyond what said money can do to boost the game in their territories and make the game self sustaining. If that is done, that takes care of the Infantino problem. And it doesn't require us to go back to the pre-Havelange days where FIFA was only concerned with the sport within the borders of Europe.
Just seeing this... What are the votes for?
I didn't say that the duty was limited to anyone. You are arguing a point that no one made.
The federal assembly which includes the election of the president but generally it's about the governance of the FFF, determine its missions and monitor the finances.
I forgot to mention that there is an additional balancing layer, one third of all votes goes to amateur clubs, one third goes to professional clubs and an other third goes to regional executives of the FFF.
This isn't meant to be used as an exampe of a great system there is a lot of room for criticism but it is meant to show an example of weighted voices within Football.
I don't, but I also wouldn't think it fair for Brazil to have 405 votes and Cape Verde have 1. They may as well not have a vote at all if it counts for so so little. Both of these extremes seem unfair to me.
I don't think that anyone suggested to go to that extreme. But it's important to keep in mind that the current system is equivalent to that but the other around where small federations have grossly inflated voices.
If you apply your example to Brazil and Cape Verde, that's roughly the difference in voting power you'd be looking at, and it's a conservative estimate based on Cape Verde having the same percentage of registered players in their population as Brazil (1%).
But yeah, I also don't agree with the current system, especially knowing now that it's not just about national teams. Either option seems extreme to me. Some kind of middle ground might be best as there's no ideal at either end. It's clear now at least that there definitely needs to be better mechanisms to prevent the kind of coup we just saw attempted, because once FIFA has been sold it's not coming back and it will be extremely hard to form something parallel with how rich FIFA is.
If you are saying that votes should be weighted to the registration of professional players that is where you are wrong, because the duty of FAs and FIFA does not stop with professional players. If you are mentioning that as a tangential point then we are probably arguing past each other.
It's not what I said. You literally quoted me mentioning that the people I'm talking about are largely amateurs.
If they are not registered then how do you know how many players exist?
The vast majority of people who play football are not registered. How do you account for them?
Registered does not mean professional. You can be registered without earning money from the game.
Being registered doesn't mean that you are a professional. When you join an amateur club, you get a registration(license) depending on the situation you get it after paying the annual fees or in some cases it's subsidised.
Ah I see now.
It probably would introduce perverse incentives (China licensing every adult between the age of 13-65) but in isolation this is much closer to FIFA's vision
UEFA threatening legal action against him. Wales also have withdrawn their support for his re-election.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp30vg829nxo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp30vg829nxo
what a loser.
What a wasteman
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Yeah, I can really see appealing to Trump helping him with keeping his presidency 
What's he gonna do, threaten to invade Greenland again if they fire him?
What's he gonna do, threaten to invade Greenland again if they fire him?
Trump's probably lost interest in him at this point
Exactly. What can Infantino really do for Trump now?
Give him another World Cup or other tournaments whenever he demands it, with more opportunities to grift? The company that they wanted to found was also reportedly going to feature the Kushners again.
So your members tell you they're against you selling off football to a hedge fund and your solution is to speak to a politician who likely has ties to the hedge fund. Presumably so said politician can threaten other people into letting you keep your position.
Totally understandable.
I can see Infantino reminding Trump that he owes him a favour for getting Balogan reinstated in the team, and generally pleading like an upset toddler.
Trump will want to tell him to feck off but as is always the case with him, he’ll weigh up how much wealth and influence is in it for himself and decide accordingly.
Trump will want to tell him to feck off but as is always the case with him, he’ll weigh up how much wealth and influence is in it for himself and decide accordingly.
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I guess there is always a possible grift, but the next available World Cup is in 2038. I doubt the US somehow gets one before that.
I'm almost sure that Infantino is currently looking into what the ramifications would be of taking the World Cup off of Spain/Portugal in 2030 and awarding it to the USA
That would be the death blow to FIFA. Even Infantino knows that.