Much has been written over the past few days about the FIFA presidency and whether Gianni Infantino is still fit to govern the world’s largest football organisation. The latest controversy, involving an apparent attempt to place FIFA’s commercial interests into a private investment-backed company, has again raised questions about who FIFA serves and how much power should be placed in the hands of one person, especially a power hungry dictator!
FIFA’s problems, however, appear to be bigger than any single president. Under both Sepp Blatter and Gianni Infantino, we have seen how power and influence can accumulate around the presidency of an organisation controlling a multibillion-pound global business.
Concentrating that much authority in one individual, particularly over several terms, creates an obvious risk. Decisions can become shaped by personal ambition, political relationships and commercial interests, rather than by what is best for football, its national associations and its supporters.
How could FIFA be fixed?
One possible solution would be to replace the individual FIFA president with a rotating presidency held by a national football association.
The system could operate broadly like the presidency of the Council of the EU, which rotates between member states every six months. Rather than allowing one individual to build a personal power base over many years, a national football association would chair and help steer FIFA for a fixed period.
My original thought was that one of the 211 member associations could be President, but even at six months each, a simple country-by-country rotation would take more than a century to complete. A more practical approach therefore could be to rotate the presidency between FIFA’s six continental confederations. Each confederation would nominate one of its national associations to hold the position for six months, following a transparent and predetermined order.
Just like UK and EU civil servants, a permanent professional backroom team would maintain continuity and carry out FIFAs day-to-day work. I know Infantino likes to deicide and run everything himself, so I would also recommend a strong independent oversight would also be needed to scrutinise major commercial agreements and prevent individual associations from using their short term for their own benefit.
I realise that no governance system can completely eliminate corruption, poor judgement or political manoeuvring. Spreading power more widely, however, would make it harder for FIFA to become dominated by the personality and ambitions of one individual.
FIFA may not simply need a new president. It may need to rethink whether it should have an all-powerful president at all.
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