Infantino planning to sell stakes in the World Cup to investors | Scrapped

Side/tangential topic on how power is distributed in FIFA:

So you have the FIFA congress that is comprised of 211 members. 1 country gets 1 vote. The Congress is responsible for electing the FIFA president, approving changes to the Constitution, voting on the FIFA host country, and approving the budget.

Then you have the FIFA council. They actually decide number of participants in the WC, the international match calendar and more operational details of FIFA. The representation is below;

The President
CONMEBOL: one vice-president and four members
AFC: one vice-president and six members
UEFA: three vice-presidents and six members
CAF: one vice-president and six members
CONCACAF: one vice-president and four members
OFC: one vice-president and two members
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A bit surprised CONNEBOL has 4 members, I would give them 6 members and take 2 away from AFC. Fine with UEFA having 3 VPs.

JPRouve said:
Yes, the UEFA structure is as senseless as the FIFA structure. Again the reason is obvious and I already stated it. We are talking about federations that represent actual people, actual affiliates. It makes no logical sense to consider that 2000 people have the same representativity than 2 millions.

And to be honest I said 1950s arbitrarily. The reason is because FIFA or to be more accurate the IFAB started with 7 members in that case the simplicity of one member federation having one vote made some sense. In the late 1940s the amount of members jumped from 34 to 48 then in the late 1950s it jumped to 62. The more federations of various sizes join the board the least sense it makes especially when there are obvious ways to fix the representativity issue.

Fundamentally the issue is one of representativity, you can't make the point that a FA like Monserrat is as representative as the FA of Iran.
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Fair enough

In the FIFA Council, UEFA's representation reflects your stance somewhat. Not based on population, but on a somewhat vague definition of historical and current contribution to the sport

I do think fundamentally changing the structure is a bit of an overreaction. UEFA has the same structure but more often than not good decisions are made by Ceferin and the executive council, and by and large I can't think of graft when it comes to European FAs, because they do take the work of football seriously. So even if you have Malta and San Marino and Andorra and co forming a bloc, there's little fear that they'll use that power to make wrong decisions.

And I think that is what has to be tackled: kicking corruption out of football and ensuring that decisions are made based on football benefit alone rather than personal benefit. If that is solved, it's likely whatever good decisions are put forward by the big nations will be adopted by the majority.
 
The Firestarter said:
No voting system is perfect , but if population is what you are basing the proportionality on, countries like China, India, and the US would have greater influence over world football. Do you think that would lead to fairer outcome?
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Football relevant population is what he is referring to

(Scenes when China mandates every adult to purchase a ball and kick it about in the yard, and suddenly, 1 billion footballers)

The Firestarter said:
By the way, one country one vote is not uncommon in federations. For example, in the US each state has two senators to balance the other proportional representation.
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FIFA's Senate is the FIFA Council

And that is a problem that will be need to be tackled in any proposed solution, otherwise you're relying on the good graces of the big dogs to prevent the small pups from being sidelined and ignored
 
adexkola said:
FIFA's Senate is the FIFA Council

And that is a problem that will be need to be tackled in any proposed solution, otherwise you're relying on the good graces of the big dogs to prevent the small pups from being sidelined and ignored
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It might be considered an upper chamber but the analogy is not the same because the Senate is two members per state while the council has different numbers for each federation.
 
The Firestarter said:
No voting system is perfect , but if population is what you are basing the proportionality on, countries like China, India, and the US would have greater influence over world football. Do you think that would lead to fairer outcome?

By the way, one country one vote is not uncommon in federations. For example, in the US each state has two senators to balance the other proportional representation.
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My point is that treating all federations as equals isn't fair for the simple reason that they don't represent the same amount of people. Some have claimed that it was fair and the most fair which is senseless when you consider the fact that they all represent actual affiliates. Then I said that it only makes sense to have weighted voices and I used registered members as one possible criteria among others, how you use it is open to discussion but it is the one objective criteria that can't be questioned because registered members are the actual people represented by these FAs.
 
adexkola said:
There is no greater meritocracy than 1 nation 1 vote in a system that shuts out corruption and patronage in every FA. You don't counteract corruption simply by giving some nations more votes. Before this World Cup, Infantino had the support of most nations, even after his Saudi Arabia and Club World Cup stunts. He ran unopposed in 2023. Where were the non-corrupt nations then?

Otherwise, why not extend this supposed meritocracy to UEFA, so that France, Spain, England, Germany, Portugal and Italy disproportionately call the shots? What have Estonia and Israel done to merit an equal vote? Why does Israel have a vote???
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Sorry, I wasn’t clear originally. I’m not advocating away from one country one vote - I fully agree that is crucial. I’m saying the whole system is currently built on incentives, which means smaller nations are able to be bought very easily, plus nations that are looking to take advantage of football for geopolitical reasons (basically everyone outside of Europe). That’s what needs to change somehow.

Infantino having the support of most nations and meaning to run unopposed next year is case in point. That’s completely down to incentives.
 
The best way forward would be to scrap this one country one vote and have a system based on performance. Each country starts with one vote and you get additional votes based on performance. Winning games, trophies, qualifications, semi finals, etc gets you more votes.
 
roseguy64 said:
He won't. He'll try and weasel away enough votes to try to remain in power come the elections.
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Absolutely. If this whole most recent endeavour has shown anything then it is that they'll have to get a crowbar to pry Infantino loose from the power and the money at Fifa. His reaction to coming up to his last possible term at the head of the organisation was trying to create a new entity with himself at the helm and private investors on the board, increasing his salary five-fold in the process, and keeping operative control over the profitable tournaments.

He's not resigning willingly, and may well hope to push through with the help of corrupt FAs. There's still plenty who haven't said a word of criticism about him yet.
 
adexkola said:
In the FIFA Council, UEFA's representation reflects your stance somewhat. Not based on population, but on a somewhat vague definition of historical and current contribution to the sport

I do think fundamentally changing the structure is a bit of an overreaction. UEFA has the same structure but more often than not good decisions are made by Ceferin and the executive council, and by and large I can't think of graft when it comes to European FAs, because they do take the work of football seriously. So even if you have Malta and San Marino and Andorra and co forming a bloc, there's little fear that they'll use that power to make wrong decisions.

And I think that is what has to be tackled: kicking corruption out of football and ensuring that decisions are made based on football benefit alone rather than personal benefit. If that is solved, it's likely whatever good decisions are put forward by the big nations will be adopted by the majority.
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I personally disagree that the voting mechanism is fine but if there's one thing we can all agree on that absolutely needs to happen before all else, it's that there has to be complete transparency on where the money is going to for every FIFA member. In theory FIFA mandates an independent audit for each member, but as per a recent article in The Guardian, only one in five members actually return detailed reports on where the money is spent.

Whenever there's so much money changing hands with so little oversight, rampant corruption is essentially a feature and not a bug.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Also a disastrous system that produces terrible outcomes.
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Actually the U.S. voting system for the general election is a sound system considering both parties have about the same amount of presidents elected since the two major parties were formed. The electoral vote sees to that. Not senators. ie: NY and California have a bigger say in the outcome because their states have more electoral votes than states like Alabama. They could easily adopt the same formula in Fifa
 
njred said:
Actually the U.S. voting system for the general election is a sound system considering both parties have about the same amount of presidents elected since the two major parties were formed. The electoral vote sees to that. Not senators. ie: NY and California have a bigger say in the outcome because their states have more electoral votes than states like Alabama. They could easily adopt the same formula in Fifa
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I was talking about the Senate, which is a horrendously undemocratic institution. 600,000 people in Wyoming wielding the same amount of power as 40 million in California makes no sense. It would be more defensible if states were in roughly the same size category (ranging from 5 to 15 million or so). Right now it's extreme and leads to minority rule.

The electoral college is also bad, as it practically disenfranchises people in deep red or blue states. Their votes won't matter. Saying that a system is good because it has led to an equal amount of presidents from each party makes very little sense.
 
njred said:
Actually the U.S. voting system for the general election is a sound system considering both parties have about the same amount of presidents elected since the two major parties were formed.
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I can see a lot of arguments for the USA voting system but this looks like a very peculiar criteria to me. Can you please elaborate? Why would this be inherently a good thing?
 
antk said:
I can see a lot of arguments for the USA voting system but this looks like a very peculiar criteria to me. Can you please elaborate? Why would this be inherently a good thing?
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It’s a thought. The more populace states get more votes. In Fifa it would be ranking? Reverse the rankings of the last 4 years and use them as votes or something to that effect. Or Top ten teams get 50 votes next ten 45 and so forth. Or some way to distinguish FA importance.
 
antk said:
I can see a lot of arguments for the USA voting system but this looks like a very peculiar criteria to me. Can you please elaborate? Why would this be inherently a good thing?
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The short answer, it's not a good thing. It's a random criteria that has no inherent value.
 
TPM said:
The best way forward would be to scrap this one country one vote and have a system based on performance. Each country starts with one vote and you get additional votes based on performance. Winning games, trophies, qualifications, semi finals, etc gets you more votes.
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That entrenches the traditional footballing powerhouses and creates a closed shop. One country one vote is the ideal system. Gathering favour via incentives so that you have unapposed elections, despite being the most corrupt person in the room, is the issue.

A proper auditing system of investment in football - e.g. if a country receives £1m for grassroots football, it isn't blanket given to an FA to spend how they see fit, only for it to miraculously disappear (e.g. Jack Warner back in the day).

Rotating presidencies, where each region chairs the FIFA presidency for a period of two years. End the cult of personality that FIFA presidents seem to cultivate. The longer they are in power, the longer they have to cosy up to people looking to exploit the world's most popular sport for either their own gain (FFE) or geopolitical reasons (Qatar, Saudi).

Removing political interference for world cup bids - make them blind somehow and give weight to the independent technical audits.

Corruption is impossible to stamp out fully, but the current situation at FIFA means that the majority of delegates are there to enrich themselves ahead of the game. They need to be removed root and branch, which won't happen by simply changing Infantino or even the voting system.
 
President of Jordan FA accusing him of blackmail now?
 
Just read an article that apparently Infantino has posted supporting messages by the FAs of Morocco, Bhutan, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Sri Lanka on his Instagram.
Bhutan apparently praised him for his willingness to put consensus before financial interests, his leadership, and his deep understanding that the strength of world football isn't just financially, but in its solidarity.

Honestly at this point I'm all in favour of just abolishing FIFA, full stop. Too many corrupt FAs, any structure they are a part of will inevitably be corrupted again, no matter what you do.
 
The likes of Wenger don't exactly come out of this covered in glory either. How fecking long it took him to put out any sort of statement, clearly just waiting to see where the wind blows before joining. And he's not alone. Where were all these feckers when Infantino pulled that FIFA Peace Prize out of his arse? Or when refs, staff, players, etc were being discriminated during the World Cup? Not a shred of integrity among them.
 
The Firestarter said:
No voting system is perfect , but if population is what you are basing the proportionality on, countries like China, India, and the US would have greater influence over world football. Do you think that would lead to fairer outcome?

By the way, one country one vote is not uncommon in federations. For example, in the US each state has two senators to balance the other proportional representation.
Click to expand...

That’s one of the major flaws of the US system too.
 


The bloke is literally a parasite. Ziegler has done wonders with this reporting throughout
 
He’s a dictator, just like Trump. Can’t admit when he’s wrong, can’t back down, can’t concede ground.
 
This isnt an Infantino problem. This is a FIFA problem.

The fact hes done all this shit and it's only surfacing now shows the whole organization is broken and needs to be scrapped.

We all spoke about overhauls needed when Blatter was ousted, it clearly just got worse.
 
They need all their headquarters raided and hard-drives taken. The shit that must still be hidden...
 
VP89 said:
This isnt an Infantino problem. This is a FIFA problem.

The fact hes done all this shit and it's only surfacing now shows the whole organization is broken and needs to be scrapped.

We all spoke about overhauls needed when Blatter was ousted, it clearly just got worse.
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Rotten to the rooth.
 
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