Monday 16 August 2010

FIFA's Big Gamble

We are told so often now that the modern game is ruled by financial considerations that it comes as something of a shock to realise what a massive gamble FIFA are prepared to take every four years with the World Cup. The cash value of global TV rights to the finals is central to FIFA’s budgetary standing, and this value must be directly proportional to the identities of the participants – but, extraordinarily, FIFA do nothing to guarantee the presence of their most valuable footballing properties.

This time around there was a salutary health warning as two past winners, France and Argentina, only managed to qualify by the skin of their teeth. The prospect of the finals not being graced by world football’s current pin-up, Lionel Messi, under the erratic and controversial management of a former occupier of that awkward precipice, will not have been a comfortable one for either FIFA executives or their TV counterparts worldwide. At the same time, there are fans everywhere who remain convinced that French qualification was owed more to the officials’ awareness of who should win rather than any normal interpretation of the rules of the game.

To make matters worse, now that they have to fight their way through the qualifying rounds, we face the possibility of reaching the finals of the competition with the holders conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps FIFA’s reasoning is that in the globalised world of TV and Internet football audiences, this would not be too damaging. The fact remains, however, that this thesis is untested. In the eyes of many fans the holders have a right to be there to defend their title as world champions, and any competition that excludes them from the finals would be discredited. Imagine, if you will, the finals being held with the holders, Brazil, France and Argentina, four past winners, all absent. Yet this is the kind of risk that FIFA now run. So far so good – the risk hasn’t materialised, but anybody who regularly plays the odds will tell you that any winning streak is likely to be followed by a losing one. The real nightmare scenario is that a sequence of two or three severely depleted finals could occur, with a concomitant impact on football as a spectacle and on FIFA revenues.

The way out of this problem is fairly obvious: automatic qualification for all past winners (Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Brazil, England, Argentina, France and Spain) and the host nation. The objections are equally obvious: depletion of revenues from the participation of these key players in the qualifying stages, together with a weakening of their teams through a lack of competitive play.

A single key innovation would, however, meet these objections and do so in a way that would work very much to FIFA’s long-term financial advantage. All past winners and the host nation should participate in a new FIFA Masters competition, held in the host nation one year prior to the World Cup finals. Careful design of the competition would guarantee all participants a fair degree of competitive experience, and the resultant TV product could approach the value of the finals themselves. Taking into consideration the playing experience from regional competitions that all FIFA members engage in during the three years prior to the proposed Master tournament, the objections dissolve.

If the modern game really is driven by financial considerations, then FIFA should implement this idea without delay on the straightforward grounds of risk aversion. The fact that it would guarantee the involvement of the Masters participants in the World Cup finals can only further enhance the TV value of FIFA’s main revenue earner, while fans worldwide would be able to enjoy the mouth-watering spectacle of a new, high-end international tournament. The promise of participation, in perpetuity, in the new tournament would add an enormous incentive to winning the World Cup for those ‘emergent’ football nations who seem to inch a little closer to the big prize every four years.

It’s time for the footballing superpowers to get together on this one and, by forcing FIFA’s hand, spare themselves forever the agonies of World Cup qualification.

2 comments:

  1. FIFA Masters would become bigger than the WC Finals themselves: would that not present FIFA with a problem ?

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  2. FIFA Masters would provide a nice counterpoint to a tournament that has become too bloated: the quality of the football is unquestionable and far superior to even ten years ago, but by the time the Final itself comes around, the majority of viewers are sated with the sheer quantity.

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