Another new FIFA

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been re-elected, running unopposed for his fourth term in office. His only opponent bowed out amid allegations of bribery, and has since been suspended by the football governing body, while counter-claims of corruption against Blatter were dismissed by FIFA. Several stakeholders called for the vote to be delayed, but it went ahead and Blatter secured an overwhelming majority.

Jens Sejer Andersen is the international director of an organization called Play the Game, which campaigns for more transparency in sporting authorities. A former journalist, he once worked for the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Associations and has contributed towards several books on corruption in sports, including writing a chapter for the 2006 German anthology, "Korruption im Sport."

Deutsche Welle: In November last year, a beleaguered Sepp Blatter promised "a new FIFA" ahead of the vote deciding where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would take place. Now, amid fresh allegations of collusion in that vote and after a controversial unopposed re-election, he's promising another new FIFA. Do you expect him to deliver?

Andersen: I think there's very little reason to believe that the new FIFA will be very different from the new FIFA before, or the new FIFA [Sepp Blatter] promised in 2006, or the new FIFA he promised in 2002. The new FIFA tends to be the good old FIFA, which is tainted by massive corruption allegations and also quite a few very well-documented corruption scandals.

Blatter has repeatedly referred to FIFA this week as a ship on choppy waters, with him at the helm. But hasn't FIFA grown into more of a supertanker in recent years?

Well, I just heard that the 100-year celebration of the launch of the Titanic took place this week. I don't know what kind of ship Sepp Blatter is managing, but he's certainly taking it in the wrong direction and heading towards some gruesome icebergs.

The thing is, FIFA cannot continue this way, not only because it threatens to disintegrate because of the internal disagreements over corruption, but also because a lot of European governments, big football clubs and other stakeholders in football simply cannot tolerate that world soccer is governed this way.

Which stakeholders in particular might wield real influence? We've seen the English Football Association and a string of major sponsors try - and fail - to stop Wednesday's vote.

I think that some of the most powerful organizations inside FIFA are the European clubs. They have a billion dollar business to protect, and they don't feel that it's well protected these days by irrational decisions by individual FIFA members and their personal greed.

A lot of European and Anglo Saxon governments simply cannot defend to their taxpayers that they pour taxpayer money into bidding processes and supporting grassroots football, pouring money into a football system that simply is not under control, or rather, is controlled by the wrong people.

These governments are anxious to see reform in FIFA, and as they are economically and financially quite important, I think that in the long run FIFA will discover that it cannot live without Europe.

Although a sport's governing body can't be classically defined as a "company," isn't FIFA a kind of monopoly inasmuch as football supporters will want to watch the sport, regardless of how the governing body behaves?

It's not a quasi-monopoly or a so-called monopoly, it's an outright monopoly. This is the big bonus for the international sports federations; they administer a monopoly over a very, very sought-after item, namely the big international championships. This is what has boosted their finances over the past 30 years to unprecedented heights. FIFA is immensely rich, and will of course be able to continue on its savings for many years.

But the thing is that if international sport becomes broadly discredited, it will lose its charm over time. And there is also the direct danger that the corruption in the organization will intertwine with corruption on the field. This is already happening in several countries, where you have match-fixing that's not operated by sinister organized criminals on the sidelines, but also by the football associations themselves.

Interviewer: Mark Hallam
Editor: Martin Kuebler