UK House of Commons
I would like to post the written evidence to the select committee on Football Governance of Guy Oliver. He says it ALL for me.
Guy Oliver
About Guy Oliver.
Guy is one of the world's leading authorities on football. In 1992 he produced the acclaimed Guinness Record of World Soccer, the first book that compiled the history of the game in every country of the world in one volume.
Guy's background is also in television where he was the Series Producer of FIFA Futbol Mundial for six years. He travelled extensively, filming football in countries throughout Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
In 2000, Guy took charge of the production team responsible for creating the multi million pound History of Football:The Beautiful Game, a 13 hour documentary series in which over 350 ex footballers from around the world were interviewed and footage obtained from over 100 archives worldwide.
In 2004 Guy made the Official Film the 1930 FIFA World Cup, using footage that had been found during the making of History of Football:The Beautiful Game. The same year, along with Tom Chittick, Guy created the Almanack of World Football and the first edition - Almanack of World Football 2006 - was published in September 2005.
Published yearly since and running to over 1,000 pages, the Almanack is regarded as the most complete reference to the year's events in football around the world.
Guy's written evidence to the select committee is:
2018 World Cup Bid - Culture, Media and Sport Committee - Written evidence submitted by Guy Oliver.
I have listened with interest to the workings of your Select Committee with regard to football governance. As you can see from the enclosed book, which I produce annually, I have a fair amount of knowledge as to the workings of world football. I believe that I can bring a different perspective to the advice that you receive with relation to England's position in the world game and how English football should go forward in the future.
Although my Almanack bears the moniker of FIFA.com, I am not an apologist for FIFA and they do not exert any editorial control over my work. I do, however, find extraordinary the sheer volume of invective thrown in their direction from this country. I feel it is of critical importance to ask why England is the only country in the world subjecting FIFA to this continuous barrage of criticism under the banner of "corruption". I am not in a position to say whether the workings of the FIFA Executive Committee are corrupt or not and that is not the point of this letter, but I believe that as the only country in the world slinging mud in their direction we are seriously undermining our position in world football and our capacity to effect change within FIFA from a position of any strength or influence.
I write to you also hoping to give you some historical perspective. The calls from the BBC and other quarters for us to leave FIFA simply beggar belief but as you will see it is nothing new. England, as inventors of the game of football have always adopted a rather haughty attitude to FIFA and the rest of the world. We were not interested in getting involved when FIFA was founded in 1904 and instead it was the French who drove world football forward. The World Cup, the European Championship, the Champions League - all of them were the creations of the French and all were subject to fierce criticism from these shores. It seems crazy now but the English refused to take part in the first three World Cups while Chelsea were forbidden from taking part in the first European Cup by the Football League, who objected to what they saw as a "foreign" intrusion into "their" game.
In many ways little has changed, despite the outstanding efforts of the international department of the FA under Jane Bateman. The globalisation of English football has been almost one way traffic. Yes, we enjoy the talents of the many foreign footballers who play here but we rarely ask - or are interested to ask - as to the football they left behind. England is just one of 208 nations recognised by FIFA but you could be forgiven for thinking that football in England, Spain, Italy and perhaps France is the only football that matters - or that fans around the world care about. This is simply not true. Each of FIFA's 208 member nations has a unique football culture that matters very deeply to people within that country.
The fact that I can write a review of the events of the year in my Almanack for all those 208 nations is a tremendous credit to FIFA and the work they do. They have built new football association headquarters for all of the world's poorer countries along with technical centres to improve the skills of players, referees, coaches and officials. Everyone of those 208 countries is now able to field a national team at all age groups for both men and women as well as running leagues and cups for both men and women - something that was unthinkable even 20 years ago. The effect FIFA has had on the women's game has been particularly profound. FIFA has done more than any other organisation to open up football to half of the world's population where before it had been a no go area and was even banned by most associations around the world - including the FA.
For that alone FIFA should be lauded and yet the media here portray the money spent by FIFA as handouts to cronies and a callous manoeuvre by Blatter to make sure they re-elect him as president.
I don't know whether the members of the FIFA Exco are corrupt. Personally, I have never come across it. It is certainly a very political organisation but as one member of the Exco said to me when I questioned him on the matter, it is very difficult to be corrupt when there are only 24 members. He believed that unlike the IOC where there are more members, the spotlight shines more intensively on the FIFA Exco which he believes is a massive disincentive to be corrupt.
What I can be sure of is that the everyday working of FIFA by their hundreds of employees is anything but corrupt. Indeed, I have never dealt with an organisation that does everything quite so strictly by the book. This is where the real work of FIFA is done and to ask if FIFA is fit for purpose to run football, as many MPs have done, this is where you should be examining and not the Exco.
The bottom line is that as a nation we need to change our attitude towards FIFA by at least acknowledging the tremendous good they do around the world. Only then will we be able to look at what it does in a more objective light.
The 2018 World Cup bid has been central to the criticism of FIFA especially the mechanism to chose the host. I put it to you that any system used will be subject to fierce debate, be it one person or a small clique left to decide, the 24 people currently used, or all 208 nations having a vote. I am not sure that any one mechanism has a critical advantage over another. There will always be losers.
The most important question that needs to be asked is why did England not win. I have listed the key points below.
1. Russia had the most compelling bid
Russia had never hosted the tournament and FIFA decided on December 2nd that it should explore new frontiers and help the game in Russia develop. This was a very sound philosophy and one that should be applauded. It is interesting to note that after about a week when this had finally sunk in here, the focus of the criticism towards FIFA shifted to the 2022 decision and Qatar. I feel that the attitude to the Qataris has bordered on outright racism. There were only ever two serious bids for the 2022 tournament as Japan, Korea and the USA had hosted the tournament very recently. I would have chosen Australia in a bid to raise the level of the game there but Qatar was seen as a vote for football in the Middle-East and there is sound logic behind the decision, despite the logistical and technological challenges that lie ahead.
2. The Premier League's 39th game plan
This was effectively a suicide note for the 2018 bid. The most shocking of all Lord Triesman's revelations was the admission that Peter Scudamore of the Premier League would support the bid if the FA supported the 39th game proposals. This would have put the FA in an impossible position when the Premier League's support should have been unconditional. The fact that it wasn't would be considered treasonable in any other country in the world.
The best way I can describe the negative impact of the 39th game proposal is to have you imagine that you are Julio Grondona, president of the Argentine FA, a FIFA vice-president and owner of one of the clubs in the Argentine top division. Is he honestly going to welcome a game between say Manchester City and Aston Villa being played in Buenos Aires? How can he regard it as anything other than poaching by greedy English clubs out to undermine the local clubs? It shows a staggering disregard for the local football culture in Argentina and we wonder why Grondona didn't vote for us! For Buenos Aires read Tokyo, Seoul, Doha, Asuncion, Bangkok, New York, Mexico City... all with representatives on the Exco. Indeed, I'd say we did pretty well to get two votes on December 2nd.
3 - The arrogance of English football. English football has few friends around the world now and that is something we really should care about. We do nothing to endear ourselves to the football communities in other countries and that is reflected in the attitudes of fans and administrators towards us. If we want to play a central role in the organisation of world football and to host a World Cup in the future, we must start engaging with other football nations around the world by acknowledging and trying to understand better the different football cultures that exist in different countries. I used to travel the world filming football and by showing an interest in the local clubs and players and the history of football in the countries I visited, I created an immediate warmth and friendship that opened so many doors. This has to be the top priority in English football as we move forward.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of the 2018 decision was the sheer lack of grace the English showed in defeat. The only person who stood up and congratulated the Russians and Qataris was David Beckham. People used to admire the English for their sportsmanship but now we are just regarded as spoilt and arrogant. As someone who has to deal with football people from all over the world, quite frankly it is embarrassing to be English right now.
I would like to help change attitudes within football and I really do think that I could advise you and other MPs as to the best way forward for the game in this country.
Guy Oliver
11 May 2011
I would just like to dispute Guy's statement, "England, as inventors of the game of football..." and also 2. The Premier League's 39th game plan - "Peter Scudamore of the Premier League..." the name of the CEO of the Premier League, is Richard Scudamore.
"England, as inventors of the game of football..." In fact the origins and the history of the great game, no one can really say with certainty when or where soccer began.
What is known however, that the earlier variations of what later became soccer were played almost 3000 years ago. I shall refer only to what is commonly known and commented upon by 'All and Sundry', "The Munich Ethnological Museum in Germany has a Chinese text from approximately 50 B.C. that mentions games very similar to soccer that were played between teams from Japan and China".
Ancient Inventions
How Soccer Originated
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The clear ancestor of soccer was the Chinese game of t'su chu, played by the third century B.C. The ball was made of leather, at first stuffed, then in later times inflated so that it carried farther. The feet and body, but not the hands, were used to propel the ball. In an aristogratic version played in front of the emperor's palace, the opposing teams tried to kick the ball through a tiny hole in a silken net. Even the emperor would occasionally take part. Women also played in a version of the game with eight players called Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea.
This Chinese "sport of kings" was, oddly enough, the sport of peasants in England during the fourteenth century A.D.—mobs number hundreds played; broken limbs were common and deaths not unknown.
The American Indian equivalent to English soccer was lacrosse (or bagataway in Irroquois), which was played in the eastern half of North America. It was described by European observers in the seventeenth century as an ancient sport.
Up to five hundred warriors on each side, often from neighboring villages, took part in this roving battle, with one team painted dark and the other light. The idea was to gather the deerskin ball in a hollowed-out stick (in later times a curved racket with sinew or hemp strings) and run with it toward the goal. Scoring was made even more difficult by the fact that the goalposts were formed by medicine men, who wandered across the field of play as the spirits directed them.
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