CONCACAF Chaos Continues

by Dave Clark on Jun 4, 2011 9:59 AM PDT in US National Team, World Cup and Other International Soccer

After Jack Warner (Pres. CONCACAF) was suspended by FIFA pending full investigation acting Pres. Lisle Austin tried to suspend Chuck Blazer for accusing Warner. Blazer remains as General Secretary as the Pres. does not have the power to choose the Gen Sec.

Now Austin has been suspended, likely for his attempted power grab. He has insisted that he is still in power that that the ExCo of CONCACAF does not have the power to remove him. The Executive Committee has voted Honduran member Alfredo Hawit as the new Acting President.

The "battle" between Blazer and Austin included dueling press releases from the New York City headquarters of the Federation and Austin's Barbados' offices. It also involved Austin trying to fire a lawyer who serves both CONCACAF and FIFA who is a former US Federal prosecutor.

United States interests seem to be accelerating within the region, and thereby within FIFA, but the house is still built on loose sand, as all of FIFA operates on a one-nation, one-vote system. The Caribbean will remain very powerful particularly as long as the shadow of Jack Warner looms over the island nations. Then again, if his allies keep acting beyond their power or wind-up accused of bribery in the expanding probe that had Warner suspended the sub-region will lose influence.

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Comments

Bad Press

is better than no press?

by Dan Olson on Jun 4, 2011 10:20 AM PDT reply actions

Ugh

I like democracy and all, but I just don’t see a sustainable future for FIFA where countries like Luxembourg and Barbados get as much influence as England and Mexico. It turns the whole system into a game of collecting influence over a bunch of tiny countries instead of countries that are tremendously more invested in the game.

If anything, the switch to opening World Cup voting to every member nation might even make it worse.

Nos Audietis

by sidereal on Jun 4, 2011 10:58 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

The nations with the lowest income levels globally

tend to be the easiest ones to bride

So CAF, CFU, Oceiana and some of Asia could basically get you a world cup

I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Jun 4, 2011 11:19 AM PDT up reply actions

It might help if CONCACAF had a two-body system more like Congress

One body could have a representative per country and another body could have more representation for more populous countries. FIFA could probably come up with a similar system.

by ubelmann on Jun 4, 2011 3:21 PM PDT up reply actions

China, India and Indonesia running FIFA would be funny

I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Jun 4, 2011 3:36 PM PDT up reply actions

It wouldn't have to be a fixed ratio

by ubelmann on Jun 4, 2011 8:39 PM PDT up reply actions

The relationship probably shouldn't be # of people

but performance in World Cups or something

I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Jun 4, 2011 8:52 PM PDT up reply actions

Performance in Cups would be a terrible way to do it

It would be the opposite of parity-inducing and would be terrible for promoting the game in places with a lot of potential fans but not much current participation. It could be something like 5 votes for 100M+, 4 votes for 10M-99M, 3 votes for 5M-9M, 2 votes for 1M-4M, and 1 vote for less than 1M. Maybe even no votes for countries with less than 100K people. You could start from there and maybe add votes for countries that have a lot of fan attendance in their domestic leagues, but I wouldn’t take votes away from the populous countries.

The real problem that we’re trying to avoid is corruption, and that stems from giving officials in tiny countries a lot of power. The smaller the country, the easier it is to buy their votes. Some of these countries wouldn’t even crack the top 10 most populous Washington cities.

by ubelmann on Jun 4, 2011 9:48 PM PDT up reply actions

There are 200+ members of FIFA. This could potentially be a very crowded room.

by Kalani on Jun 5, 2011 10:19 AM PDT up reply actions

I just think the relationship should be with the sport

Not finances, not population

Places that don’t compete shouldn’t have influence over the competition

I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Jun 5, 2011 10:27 AM PDT up reply actions

I guess I just have an issue with tying it to on-the-field performance

If you wanted to tie it to attendance or something, I could see that, but I still don’t see it as optimal. I guess I see a big part of FIFA’s mission as being spreading soccer around the world, and if you gave more weight to teams that have done well in the World Cup, I think we’d see the WC alternate between Europe and South America, the ‘94 WC might never have happened, and we wouldn’t be talking about the Sounders in MLS.

by ubelmann on Jun 5, 2011 1:23 PM PDT up reply actions