France's captain Thierry Henry, left, and Ireland's Richard Dunne react after their World Cup qualifying match at the Stade de France stadium in Saint Denis near Paris, Nov. 18, 2009. (Charles Platiau/Reuters)
Opinion: Hey FIFA, how low can you go?
On the sinking integrity of soccer's international governing body and why the World Cup will be regarded with suspicion.
BOSTON — No matter how offensive you regard the actions of French striker Thierry Henry on the field last week, FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, is deserving of far more scorn and condemnation.
More than just complicit in the spurious goal — created by Henry’s juggling act — that gave the match and a spot in the 2010 World Cup to France over Ireland, FIFA is guilty of grievous neglect of its responsibilities as steward of the world’s most beloved game.
The “Hand of Henry” affair gave lie to FIFA’s ballyhooed “Fair Play” campaign, the one it displays so prominently in posters and banners at every match. At the core of that credo is this noble sentiment: “Winning is without value if victory has been achieved unfairly or dishonestly.”
As it turns out, never mind. FIFA will offer nothing beyond lip service in defense of fair play, throwing up its hands and insisting it is helpless to remedy referee error. Of course, FIFA has an elastic bag of rules when it comes to changing procedures that could bolster its own revenues.
France was only playing Ireland in the first place because FIFA made a late change in procedures for the European playoffs. Ignoring precedent and its earlier stated plans, FIFA seeded the draw, in an effort to boost the glamour teams like France, the ones that attract more viewers and generate more revenues, toward South Africa 2010.
As it turned out, a cheat of a goal deciding a World Cup berth and provoking an international uproar proved to be only the second worst news of the week for FIFA. Two days later, European law enforcement authorities announced the arrest of 17 members of a gambling cartel that had conspired to fix games in nine European countries. Included among 200 games that may have been tainted were some in Europe’s two most prestigious club competitions, the Champions and Europa leagues.
News of match fixing should hardly come as a shock to fans — and certainly not to the soccer establishment. In recent years, the sport has endured a number of such scandals, major and minor, around the world. Just three years ago, a German referee was sentenced to 29 months in prison for his service to a Croatian gambling syndicate.
Soccer is a particularly inviting target for gambling cartels because it is a low-scoring affair in which one official commands unbridled power. A single officiating error — a mistaken award or denial of a penalty kick, the banishment of a player with a red-card for an offense that only warranted a cautionary yellow or, as we witnessed, a critical non-call on a hand ball — can decide a game.
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