By Larry Izamoje
FIFA president, Sepp Blatter should ordinarily be as happy as Spain’s Andres Iniesta but you do not lay claim to happiness when your posits are a mixture of the good and the bad. He has  voiced all is not well with the game and that an x-ray will be done in September.

I recall how he assured the world repeatedly that Africa would host a World Cup final that will rubbish most of the records that give past hosts life in the eyes of  record keepers.

I have not forgotten how those enveloped by fear were well lectured on how Interpol, the South African enlarged security forces and help from  the crime detectors and crackers  of participating teams  will  make it hitch-free. Will I forget seeing Sepp Blatter with just four  men, perhaps security men but not brandishing steer-clear weapons, at the Sandton shopping mall, Johannesburg  during the competition? He even took time to pose for photographs with autograph seeking soccer faithfuls and admirers.

It was largely the same friendly and inviting setting everywhere. From the slums of Alexandria, through the squatter settlements of Yeovil to the coastlines of Durban and other host cities, celebration never left the air. Yes, pockets of problems were reported in a few places but they were so insignificant they  never questioned the promise kenako, Africa’s time, held for the world.

Rather, it was in the area of  on-field play and conduct  as well as proclamations from Blatter’s exalted office that the game, like a punch-drunk boxer, showed it is endangered and taking the mandatory count. A wry smile played on Blatter’s  lips at  the press conference in South Africa where he owned up and admitted it in his own words.’we have to improve…….’he said.

Truth is mankind has moved faster than FIFA and the game as it is today stands endangered.
In my many years in sports service, I have  seen FIFA wear ‘two-faces’. Its president romances the government of countries, particularly countries hosting their competitions. FIFA tells you government guarantee is a special requirement before they consider any bid. In the years leading to any event, FIFA  is happy to ‘dine and wine’ with government. as long as the funds are doled out for its competition, bigwigs from Zurich are happy to visit named countries for their competitions. Put another way, when it comes to spending to promote football, no government interfers but once it comes to asking for transparency and accountability from its nationals told to liaise with FIFA on behalf of FIFA and the people, Zurich rises with  hammer in hand.

Towards South Africa 2010, we saw pictures of Blatter and ex-president Thabo Mbeki. His many pictures with president Jacob Zuma found places almost everywhere in South Africa. This is stock taking time.

If the  government of South Africa tries to unearth why a first round elimination was the salute from their federation for the financial injections their way, a roar will come from Zurich. Yet, from Siberia to Liberia, so many countries want  a better operation of football administration.

Technological advancements are recorded almost daily. Mankind is getting better. Research is helping re-shape our world but FIFA has failed to make room for a good marriage between it and the people who love its game represented, not truly, by the congress or board or even secretariat that FIFA so well relates with but by the government bound by an oath to act at all times in the interest of the people. We have seen, using the case of Nigeria, that the people’s wish often times is not the dictate of those calling the shots in their football federation.

All too often, we hear those same words ‘FIFA’s ban’. Now, countries are getting increasingly disturbed that Zurich is only ready to do the defence hush and rush with no seriously pursued way  of making federations operate like they do in Zurich themselves.

Accountability
From Zurich they have the deal
with Adidas for balls. Here in Nigeria, we never knew where the Adidas contract was for years. The contents remained mysterious. Now we hear 590,000 euros came into the coffers of the F.

A as Adidas fee. There is nothing to show for the money or any other before it as our country’s Jabulani for the relationship. We saw buses, beverages, telephone services and other provisions  by FIFA’s partners in South Africa. Why have we not made our game a brand good enough for sponsors to pull and push for. Why do we not price our  football products well? Why is Zurich not looking into the issues that create the tension that snowballs into what it calls government interference rather than wait  to voice its threats?

Now that more countries are bold enough to sneeze, FIFA knows it is not going to be business as usual. We pray someone does not wake up one day and through the instruments of International coalitions and alliances engineer a shift from Zurich to a body he would have conceptualized. After all, when hope impregnated Obama’s audacity, no one was there but everyone screamed ‘yes, we can’ when he started feeding on Bush’s low points.

Cheating the Suarez way Suarez  fisting out  the ball from  the goal line and being styled a hero in Uruguay only helped to endanger Blatter’s game. If nothing is done about just serving a one match ban for such a grave offence, parents will not see the game beautiful enough as an item for their good conduct  talk.

Tevez scoring and admitting he was offside; Germany’s keeper Nuerer voicing he conned the referee by pretending the ball did not cross his goal line in quickly continuing play; David Villa who slapped Honduran Iziguirre and  raised FIFA’s biggest prize-the World Cup-on final match day in celebration without a knock for poor conduct  gives FIFA  itself a yellow card, moreso as there was a committee in charge of those things the referee never saw.

Oh. Maybe the Nigeria/Argentina match would have ended 0-0 if the opponent that held the Nigerian defender that was to race to Heinze had not done so. If we had pulled a point from that game, the camp chemistry would have changed and with it our overall results, so many said. Reflecting, it places a question mark on the competition and FIFA. Must a different quality of ball be made every four years? Jabulani’s only contribution was the debate it generated.

Fourteen yellow cards in a World Cup final? Failure to banish Carles Puyol and sending off Heitinga for  an offence  within the same bracket and that way paved the way for Madrid to receive the trophy. Truly, too many things now endanger the game.

FIFA must look for ways to catch up with players antics, now so well perfected that officials are fooled. It must devise better call making methods for referees. It should merely rename  balls that got  encomiums from past competitions rather than introduce what kills joy next time out if a better ball cannot be  produced.

So many on-field issues to look at but beyond them, you cannot shove aside those under whose authority those who relate with you are. All FA officials in Nigeria, for example, are first Nigerians before becoming FA officials. Whereas one will not canvass for Switzerland  to swallow FIFA which operates in one of its cities, it is untenable for FIFA to attempt to control Switzerland  and the entire world when FIFA has not demonstrated enough inputs in making football administration in most countries just as virile as its own out there.

If Zurich has a fixation, it must help it get global acceptance by making F.A’s heart-thumping results giving. To do less than that is to remain within shooting range someday, perhaps, in the not too distant future when countries will start a revolt that will swallow Zurich.