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Corrupt World Cup of despair

By Graham Cooke - posted Friday, 6 June 2014


FFA says it is fully cooperating with FIFA's own inquiry into this and other allegations of corruption surrounding the allocation of the tournament to Qatar.

Will this mean that FIFA will clean up its act and heed the mounting calls for a re-run of the 2022 bidding process? It may be the most honourable course of action, but for the highly-paid executives in their Zurich headquarters, my bet is that it will be business as usual.

To a certain extent the game is a victim of its own success – so popular it has fallen into the hands of people who wish to squeeze it for every dollar they can make. Football was once billed as the working man's entertainment. In 1900 it was possible to watch a top-class English match for the equivalent of 5c. Today the cheapest ticket to watch Manchester United is roughly $50 at Arsenal $92.

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A survey of the price of goods and services in 1900 and still available in 2000, found that football match admission was one of only three items that had outstripped the rise in wages during the century, and the cost explosion has continued since.

I will stress that I have not fallen out of love with the game itself. I still look for the results of Exeter City, the team I have supported for almost 60 years. The City plays in the fourth level of English football, has never been higher than the third level and probably never will.

But it is owned by its own supporters – a trust of which I am a member – and has an outstanding policy of developing young talent. Half the squad that will compete next season in English League Division Two will be born within a 50-kilometre radius of the home ground at St James Park.

This, of course, is not a model for success at the highest level. That requires billionaire owners, stock exchange floats, high-priced merchandising, higher-priced 'consultants' and a welter of sponsors desperate to hand over the money that will show they are "part of the action".

But at least at Exeter the fans are still valued – and in return the three or four thousands of them turn up week in, week out in conditions that are a world away from the luxury sponsors boxes at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge, to cheer, to groan and yes, even to dream.

To my mind it is at this level that the damaged heart of football can still beat freely. While, no doubt, the dollars will soon be rolling in for yet another "Greatest World Cup Ever" and shabby deals will still be done far away from the sight of long-suffering fans, that is where my real passion for the game rests.

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About the Author

Graham Cooke has been a journalist for more than four decades, having lived in England, Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, for a lengthy period covering the diplomatic round for The Canberra Times.


He has travelled to and reported on events in more than 20 countries, including an extended stay in the Middle East. Based in Canberra, where he obtains casual employment as a speech writer in the Australian Public Service, he continues to find occasional assignments overseas, supporting the coverage of international news organisations.

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