Friday, December 03, 2010

That World Cup decision

To put it bluntly I don't care. Yes it brings in tourists etc; but do we really want the expense of hosting yet another international event? Anyway still not caring, but it's all the talk of how the decision came about that piques my interest. Since the decision all I've seen is pundits stating that FIFA need to be more transparent that following that report it needs to address bribery and corruption and so on and so forth.

It's a private body operating under Swiss law. If some large business here decided to award a building contract to Builder A rather than Builder B would we have people demanding that the decision process be laid out for the public, to answer charges that it was down to bribery?

Nope. It's not public funds, we as a country don't fund FIFA; that's the private football clubs and the event fees and broadcasting rights. If they don't like it they can stop paying them, leave, and start a new association; but don't drag the country into it.

[Well I said don't drag the country into it - yet reports suggest some of the items on the list of demands from FIFA include making the entire operation tax-free. Remind me again why our (or any) government should be bothering with this organisation at all?]

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