Dear Editor,
World football needs to be brought under control. Perhaps we should send in the United Nations!
Sepp Blatter looked certain to win unopposed in the presidential election of FIFA, football’s governing body, after being cleared of all charges relating to corruption in the game.
In the face of mounting political pressure, FIFA insisted that it would not postpone the election and thus invited derision for creating a situation where it could be won by only one man.
While Mr Blatter, who earns €700,000 (£607,000) a year from FIFA, survived unscathed, two of the sport’s most senior figures, Mohamed bin Hammam and Jack Warner, the head of the confederations of Asia and the Caribbean and North America respectively, were suspended from any involvement in football.
So much for the plea from Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron that FIFA defer the election of Sepp Blatter for a further four years.
Why should anyone at FIFA have listened to a Prime Minister who, only months ago, was wooing Mr Blatter in the hope that the executive committee would award England the 2018 World Cup?
Changes in the law on sports administration going through the Swiss parliament should hopefully ensure that FIFA clean up their act while Mr Blatter looks set to rule the roost for the foreseeable future. But the English still have plenty of egg on their faces, not least David Beckham, whose main contribution to the 2018 bid was to visit Trinidad and Tobago and Jack Warner.
In the past, Mr Warner was found to have profited from selling World Cup tickets above face value through his family travel firm.
In addition, the tax-paying public should know that the British Government sanctioned a 24-hour tax amnesty for Barcelona players and officials last week.
The agreement ensured that their earnings and bonuses whilst in London for the Champions League Final were free of UK tax at a time when the British public is now having to work three days longer just to pay for the increase in VAT.
No other world body could or should be allowed to wield so much power.
CHRIS WRIGHT Tavira
