Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain, and Italy, along with England, have been asked to leave FIFA after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
This is how former Three Lions striker Stan Collymore sees it. He thinks that the way football’s governing body has handled issues related to the tournament is a shame.
In his latest column for The Mirror, the former Liverpool and Nottingham Forest striker criticised FIFA officials and said that the biggest soccer nations should leave the “corrupt” organisation.
Since the Gulf state was chosen to host the 22nd World Cup 12 years ago, there has been a lot of trouble, and problems have continued to overshadow the games on the field in the first week of the tournament.
FIFA has been criticised by a lot of people because it didn’t follow its own charter and protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people during the tournament.
During World Cup games in Qatar, the captains of a number of countries, including England and Wales, planned to wear the OneLove armband to show that everyone is welcome.
But at the last minute, this plan was scrapped because FIFA said that any player seen wearing the armband on the field would be punished right away.
FIFA has also stopped a number of similar moves because it wants to keep the Qatari government happy.
Collymore wants to see changes because he thinks the organisation is no longer good at what it does.
“When the tournament is over, we really need to think about how to stop FIFA, with all its corruption and power. When you can see that a government is corrupt, you have the chance to get rid of them every four years.
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So why is it that Gianni Infantino was just re-elected president for another four years without any competition?
Presidents should only be able to serve for one four-year term, and the voting process for who gets to be president and who gets to host the World Cup should be completely open.
“When the World Cup is over, I’d love to hear the associations of England, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain, and Italy say, ‘Right, that’s it, we’re boycotting FIFA until it gets its act together and introduces a proper, ethical standards charter it follows for giving out World Cups.’
Collymore: “The World Cup wouldn’t be as interesting without the big teams.”
“Because even though FIFA says they run the game, they only do so with the approval of the elite nations, and a World Cup without at least five or six of those teams just wouldn’t be as interesting.”
If all of the best international teams in the world quit FIFA at the same time, there would be total chaos. But the truth is that some of the biggest players seem to have less faith in the game’s governing body than they ever have before.
“What we’ve seen in the past week is that FIFA’s ethics, morals, and values have gone out the window because they sold the tournament to a country that doesn’t share the same ethics, morals, and values as most of the other countries at the World Cup.”
And this happened because FIFA put the cart before the horse instead of the other way around. But if the big countries don’t play in FIFA and instead play high-profile friendlies against each other while wearing whatever armbands they want, they can make enough noise to bring about much-needed change.
If FIFA thought that the noise about Qatar 2022 would stop once the games started, they are likely to be disappointed.
