We don’t need Fifa = and the sooner they are thrown out, the better

One of the great consistencies of Fifa and to a lesser extent of Uefa, is that they are utterly sure that those people who pay moeny to go and watch the tournaments they put on are idiots.  

Now this is an important point, because having defined their audience as idiots that opens up the door to Fifa doing absolutely anything they want, and telling any story they wish about how wonderful Fifa is, since their idiot customers won’t know reality from a punch of porcupines doing a samba in the middle of Trafalgar Square.

Fifa has a long and colourful history of making stuff up, and with the collusion of some of the less sanitary broadcast media, getting away with it.  Which has led them into ever more weird and wonderful explanations for their own behaviour.

Of course if that were it, we’d just laugh, but they go further and start blaming the behaviour of the fans for anything that goes wrong.   In fact so stupid do Fifa think we are that they can have a game in which the ground is 20% full, and the bars are almost empty, and tell us the game was sold out.   

The problem with this approach, however, is that with each and every tournament that passes, more and more whacky, weird and wild excuses are used up.  And indeed I wouldn’t be surprised to see advertisements appearing for football fans with a sense of imagination who can come along and create even more outlandish explanations as to why most of the grounds are empty in Fifa world most of the time.

In fact, already in the first few days of the competition, we have Fifa coming out with ever more bizarre explanations for the empty grounds.   Fifa told us that the many fans we could not see watching the opening match were watching from the concourses rather than going to their seats.   In fact, it seemed they were claiming something like 35,000 people in the concourses and 9,000 in their seats.

But maybe we shold take them at their word.  There were 35,000 people in the concourses and bars.   But that would be incredibly unsafe, so why were the police not called in to empty the bar areas and resotre safety?   We are not told…  

Yet bonkers and insane though these stories are Fifa the nerve and audacity to stick by them through the game as the cameras constantly showed us an empty stadium.

The reality of course, is that thousands of tickets for the tournament have not been sold, and now in a desperate attempt to get people into the ground, some tickets are being offered at way below face value.   Indeed there are tales of tickets being given away in the 20 minutes up to kick off.

But that still brings a problem, because there are so many fake tickes on sale that members of the public who might be tempted by a cut price ticket are immediately thinking that it must be a fake ticket, and that they will pay and then not be admitted.

The issue of course, is the price of tickets, and this stems from Fifa falling for the oldest deceit in the book – believing their own propaganda.   They get so used to telling everyone that the tickets are almost sold out that they start to believe it.   But actually not that many people are willing to pay £650 – the lowest price for some games, up to £6,900 – the top price.  Especially with the thought that one might pay that money and then find the ticket was a fake.   (And hospitality tickets are in fact more expensive still).

Of course, it is the central mantra of El residente Gianni Infantino that everything is wonderful, which is sometimes OK for a bit of PR, but rebounds badly when things are going very wrong indeed.   The simple fact is that not that many people want to spend over £4000 for a ticket to see England play Ghana in Boston.   And why would they?

But the real problem is not so much the gibberish that the fruitcake couple come out with in defending their running of the show, but that they actually believe it.   All one can say is  words. 

In fact, as others have been saying, Fifare is facing a PR disaster, which raises the slight possibility that those involved in this fiasco might not be involved in the next one, which would make for a pleasant change.

I am not sure there has ever been a “Say no to Fifa” campaign  but it does seem to me it would be a jolly good idea.   And if you want an interesting secondary question, how about this one: “Why do we need Fifa?”   

In fact we don’t.  In England, we are perfectly capable of running the Premier League without Fifa.   And if people say well we need an international organisation to run the WC, I’d still ask “why”?   Fifa is completely unnecessary, especially as the money it takes goes into t he pockets of people like Trump and Infantino – two of the most undeserving turnips I can think of.

Football is already the world’s game – what possible good does it do football to have its good name besmirched by the likes of Infantino, Trump and the rest of the gang?