Controversy engulfs FIFA’s World Cup bidding committee
It is a huge honour and a massive economic and tourist boost for any country that hosts the FIFA World Cup. The bidding process for hosting the Cup is long and arduous; a voting system is in place for the host nation to be chosen and the process has evolved
over the years. Recently some controversy erupted after two FIFA officials wanted to sell their votes for cash. This issue has put a black mark on the bidding process and now FIFA are getting ready to launch a full scale investigation into the matter. It is
hoped that the matter can be resolved soon and the bidding process becomes fair and clean once again.
The FIFA process for choosing the host nation for the World Cup each year has slowly changed over the years. In the past it was the case that a nation would host the tournament after having an unchallenged bid. If there were multiple countries in the bidding
process, then they would usually withdraw their bids to leave the unchallenged bid intact. 1938 was the first time when a winning bid was chosen by a voting system. A voting system was not utilised again until 1962; since that time it has been used for every
tournament that followed.
The system described above differs a lot from the current bidding and selection process in place today. The way the process works these days is that a host country is chosen seven years before the start of the next tournament. FIFA’s Executive Committee
is in charge of the voting system and each member of this Committee has a single vote to choose the next venue. The country with the most votes is given the chance to host the Cup. For the 2010 and 2014 event, FIFA put in a new rule which was a continental
rotational policy. This meant that the hosting of the Cup would be rotated to different regions of the world. So for the 2010 tournament the region was Africa and the vote was eventually won by South Africa. The 2014 host country would be chosen from South
America and so on.
The fact that each member of the Executive Committee has a single vote can in some extreme cases leave the system open to abuse. People from a certain country that has a very strong desire to host the Cup can effectively bribe one of the members to secure
their vote. Even though FIFA scrutinises the whole process diligently, it can still be manipulated by dodgy individuals. The problem is that due to the fact that hosting the World Cup is a hugely profitable affair that a large number of countries want to be
able to host it.
An interesting development took place recently in the selection process for the right to host the 2018 World Cup. A group of undercover reporters from the Sunday Times, posed as a lobby group of companies from America who wanted the Cup to be held in the
USA. They approached Amos Adamu, who is a Nigerian board member of the FIFA Executive Committee and tried to convince him to vote in their favour. The reporters were allegedly told that he would require a large sum of money to build pitches in Nigeria and
then they could have his vote. He told the group of reporters to give him £500,000 to build the pitches. Mr. Adamu is also the president of the West African Football Union. The Committee member told the group that if he was paid the amount of money they could
count on him to give his vote in favour of America to host the Cup.
Another member of the Committee also allegedly asked for payment to buy his vote was Reynald Temarii who is also the president of the Oceania Football Confederation. He is said to have asked for money to pay for the construction of a sports academy. These
two examples showed how easy it is to influence Committee members and effectively buy votes.
FIFA has sprung into action and is looking into the matter; they will be reviewing the evidence they received from the reporters of the Sunday Times and will be holding their own investigation. It will now be up to them to clean up the system and make it
free from abuse in the future.
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