But if next year’s World Cup in Korea/Japan is a flop, the Fifa president has scapegoats
David Lacey
Beaming benignly, Sepp Blatter approached the task with the air of a Swiss waiter in charge of the sweet trolley. The customers might get indigestion, but he was not going to drop the profiteroles.
Nothing fazed our Sepp. Sophia Loren might have fondled the plastic balls suggestively, to please the Rome paparazzi, before the draw for Italia ’90. Robin Williams might have sent the whole thing up in Las Vegas four years later by referring to him throughout as “Mr Bladder”. In Marseille a foolishly conceived open-air draw for the 1998 World Cup chilled everyone to the marrow in the Stade Vlodrome, but Blatter simply donned a thick overcoat and carried on as serenely as usual.
Since he was elected president of Fifa, however, the mellifluous master of ceremonies is in danger of becoming the king of the cock-up. The collapse of ISL, responsible for Fifa’s marketing, wounded the game’s global body financially. Blatter’s baby, that tedious brat known as the World Club Championship, was called off this year (though its reinstatement is proposed) because of the failure of Brazil, the host country, to attract sponsors.
Fifa’s already uneasy relations with European body Uefa were strained to breaking point by the president’s backdoor deal with Fifpro, the players’ international body, over freedom of contracts. And still Blatter bangs on about taking the 2010 World Cup to Africa, even sharing it between two African countries when scant evidence exists of any one being able to host a 32-nation event.
Nevertheless, Blatter’s re-election as president at next summer’s Fifa congress seems assured. Lennart Johansson, the president of Uefa and Blatter’s rival in 1998, has already declared Europe’s support, for all their past differences.
This has less to do with any increase in affection for Blatter than the desire to keep the Fifa presidency in European hands. Such experienced administrators as South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon or Issa Hayatou of Cameroon may have a case for consideration, but memories of the 24-year reign of Joao Havelange, the Brazilian wheeler-dealer, are too strong, in every sense, for the Third World to get a look-in now.
By the time next year’s tournament kicks off in Seoul, therefore, Blatter should already be assured of another four years in office. And, if the concept of a World Cup co-hosted by two nations somewhat further apart in friendship than they are geographically turns out to be Fifa’s folly, the president will have scapegoats conveniently to hand.
But for the efforts of Chung Mong-joon, who was supported at the crucial moment by Europe and Africa, today’s draw would be taking place in and on behalf of Japan alone.
The 13-year-long Japanese campaign to become the first Asian country to host a World Cup looked like being successful until the Koreans, who had been lobbying for less than a quarter of that period, came barging up on the rails.
At the time the decision to split the tournament was seen as being not so much an attempt to promote “peaceful coexistence in that part of the world”, which was how Johansson described it, as a snub to the 80-year-old Havelange, who had long been Japan’s leading supporter. So, if Blatter presides over a flop next summer, he will be able to blame Fifa politics.
Next year’s tournament will not be a flop. World Cups never are, the strength of the ingredients guarantees that.
But, when neither of the host nations is going to emerge a winner, the football will clearly have to produce something special to hold the attentions of the Japanese and Korean public.
Just as, for example, the whole of Mexico fell in behind the Brazil of Pele and Tostao for the later stages of the 1970 World Cup and worshipped at the feet (if not the hands) of Diego Maradona 16 years later, the Brazilians’ influence in the J-League should bring them much Japanese support this time, although whether the team is up to it remains to be seen.
Argentina, now the global leader in exporting outstanding footballers, look a much better bet provided they can keep their tempers. And, if a European nation is going to win a World Cup outside its own continent for the first time, then look no further than France or Italy.
Whatever transpires, this will be a strange tournament. For the most part it will, in effect, be two World Cups, each taking place against a background of different cultures, different languages, different currencies and, not least, different cuisines.
To be sure, the 1994 World Cup was played out across four United States time zones, involved considerably more travelling time and produced language difficulties with almost every cab ride. Yet it maintained a sense of oneness throughout.
Should next year’s showpiece merely approach the generosity of spirit that saw average crowds of 68 000 in a country which normally regards soccer as a minority sport, then the Far East will have reason to be proud.