In the latest of his regular offerings, Bescot Banter columnist Hillary Street-Ender takes a look back at where his passion for the beautiful game began, and discusses how the sport has changed over the years - from a boyhood love affair, to a seemingly corrupt, often money hungry business.I began to take an interest in football as the 1960s morphed into the 1970s, I was around seven years old and once I’d got the bug I began to love the game with my whole being. I played whenever I could – I was never any good – and soaked up whatever televised footie I could get. I was allowed to stay up late on Saturdays to watch Match Of The Day and that hour or so was the highlight of my week, with Star Soccer, every Sunday afternoon, coming a close second. To have a match televised live and in it’s entirety was a real rarity back then so I was lucky to be one of the generation that grew up when the FA Cup Final was a day-long event and when England v Scotland still seriously mattered. The World Cup Finals featured just sixteen nations and ‘my’ first finals happened to be West Germany 1974, when England failed to qualify so the nation, through my schoolboy’s eyes at least, seemed to get solidly behind Scotland. This was at a time when the game rather than the product still ruled the roost but that state of affairs wasn’t to last for too much longer.
Sir Stanley Rous had just come to the end of his tenure as president of FIFA and a Brazilian by the name of Joao Havelange had taken over. He would remain in the post until Sepp Blatter – Havelange’s candidate of choice – stepped up from his position as General Secretary. The moment of Havelange’s investiture was the moment at which serious corruption entered our sport, corruption that was to expand to mind-blowing levels during his twenty-four year stint in the job and that was to lead directly to the sorry state of affairs we have today, where the actual playing of the game comes a distant second to it’s ability to generate stratospheric amounts of the folding stuff. This is playing on my mind because I’ve just finished reading a volume entitled ‘How They Stole The Game’, by David Yallop, a book that unmasks Havelange as a villain of the first order and one who was able to get away with his villainy by buying off just about anyone potentially in a position to stop him and by making sure cronies of his filled positions of influence. The book is fascinating and soul-destroying in equal measure and is perhaps best avoided by those who still like to think well of those who run football at it’s highest level. If you plough your way through it you’ll certainly never think of the World Cup in quite the way you always have. We know that the bidding process for future finals is open to all sorts of skulduggery but it seems it’s been that way since Havelange first sat at the top table and has only become more corrupt since. FIFA is now run by his former right hand man so are things likely to change any time soon?
Sepp Blatter has been in position since 1998 and went up against would-be reformer Lennart Johansson for the vacant job. Johansson appeared to have substantial support until Havelange stuck his oar in and the schmoozing went into overdrive. Our own FA is alleged to have been one of the associations to change sides, when Havelange gave the impression of favouring England to stage the 2006 finals during a meeting with Tony Blair at number ten. The 2006 finals weren’t staged in England and it seems highly unlikely that the finals will be played here in the foreseeable future, with Greg Dyke recently saying that the FA will from now on only bid to host UEFA competitions after the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 finals was seen to be something less than above board. If you were already under the impression that administration of the game at it’s highest level stinks to high heaven then Yallop’s book will just confirm what you’ve been thinking. If you long for the days when our sport was just a matter of eleven against eleven then you might be well advised to give the book a very wide berth. As I said, it’s a truly fascinating read but one that’ll make you want to weep for what’s been done to the beautiful game and that from a volume that barely touches on the Blatter administration. What might have gone on since publication is anyone’s guess. I’d sort of like to know and I sort of wouldn’t.
When the man at the top is corrupt…
By: Hillary Street-Ender.