FIFA’s Crisis Is Not a Conspiracy, but a Design Flaw

The scene, as it is described to me, is almost theatrical. A great sporting confederation gathers in Morocco amid uproar over a proposed World Cup spinoff and a plan to raise vast sums by selling tournament rights. The leadership apologises to its 211 member associations for “mistakes” in handling this affair, then in the same breath reaffirms its full support for its chief officer. One powerful regional bloc publicly declares it no longer has confidence in that leader; another calls for resignation on the ground that “institutional trust” has been lost. Yet other regions declare unanimous support and denounce a “concerted effort” to oust the incumbent. The ball, it appears, is not the only thing being contested.

In such quarrels, it is wise first to follow the money and then the votes. The proposed sale of commercial rights, if it had succeeded, would have created obvious and immediate beneficiaries; the costs, in the form of diminished future bargaining power and perhaps higher prices to spectators and broadcasters, would have been spread so widely as to be scarcely visible. When anger erupts over the collapse of such a project, one should always ask: who mourns lost revenue, and who fears lost influence over that revenue? Benefits are concentrated and noisily defended; costs are diffuse and quietly borne.

The same principle, which in my Wealth of Nations I applied to merchants petitioning for special protections, applies with equal force to petitions wrapped in the language of democracy. We are told that the president was “democratically elected” by the 211 associations and that any removal must pass through those established processes. This is, in form, an appeal to justice; in substance, it is also a defence of an existing distribution of voting power that presently favours the incumbent. When office-holders insist that only the current rules may judge their conduct, the impartial spectator should inquire whether we are seeing the love of justice, or only the self-love of those who find justice convenient.

On the other side, cries of “no confidence” and demands for resignation are no less interested. A regional body that has lost faith in the leader does not cease, on that account, to pursue its own authority. Allegations of misconduct in private life, distrust over the handling of the proposed rights sale, complaints of damaged “integrity” and “good governance” – all these may be perfectly sincere, yet they are also instruments in the ordinary higgling and bargaining of factions. As I observed long ago in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, we are none of us so impartial judges in our own cause as we imagine; our resentment at a rival’s success comes dressed, to ourselves, as zeal for public virtue.

If we call upon the impartial spectator in earnest, we must ask a different question: what would a well-informed and disinterested observer think, not of this or that person, but of the rules under which they contend? Here we see an organisation that apologises for its handling of a major commercial scheme, yet promises to “challenge directly and vigorously” any reporting it deems inaccurate. It proclaims devotion to “integrity, good governance and due process,” yet offers little detail, in these reports at least, of how those virtues are to be made visible to the world. To demand trust without furnishing transparency is to seek to be loved without being truly lovely.

In my discussion of the duties of the sovereign in the Wealth of Nations, I argued that there are certain public works and institutions which, by benefitting great multitudes, may be fit objects of public care though unfit objects of private profit. A global governing body for a game beloved by the labouring poor of every country is one such institution. Its first duty is exact administration of justice among its members; its second is the careful stewardship of a common resource that no single private undertaker could own without abusing. When such a body speaks of “attacks on its integrity,” it should be prepared to exhibit that integrity in open procedures, not merely assert it in sonorous phrases.

Yet I am no friend of the “man of system” who would, upon discovering disorder, overturn the great chess-board of human society at a stroke. Those 211 associations, with their varied interests and unequal resources, are not pieces moved at will by a reformer’s hand; they move according to principles of their own. To imagine that a single resignation, or a sudden constitutional revolution, will cure the underlying conflict between concentrated commercial opportunity and dispersed membership is a pleasing illusion. The more practical remedy is slower: clearer rules for conflicts of interest, fuller disclosure around great commercial schemes, and a more equal knowledge among the associations of what is proposed in their name. Where institutions are concerned, abrupt dismissals satisfy resentment; careful redesign restrains it.

This crisis, then, is neither a grand moral drama nor a mere conspiracy; it is the predictable result of large sums, unequal votes, and imperfect rules. Leaders cling to process because it protects them; rivals invoke virtue because it serves them; spectators struggle to discern where the public good lies amidst the din. A wise reform would not pretend to purify self-interest, which cannot be done, but would better harness it under rules that make praise-worthiness, and not only victory, the surest road to power. Until then, every apology will sound strategic, and every accusation will look like a bid for the ball rather than a defence of the game.