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Comment by Hugsbox | Hacker News Reader

At what point would it be worth it for clubs to just decouple from FIFA and start a new international federation without all the bullshit? I know as long as there's massive amounts of money involved corruption is bound to seep in, but the optimist in me wants to believe a new federation could be structured to be slightly more resistant to it.

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That's the problem. You can create a new thing with the initial leadership that is well intended, but say 250 years later some one less well intended gets voted in charge. So something smaller like FIFA and IOC would be much more susceptible as the voting base is much smaller and easier to corrupt.

A lot of people would be behind this, but it would likely just cause a massive schism. The question to be answered is if the world is large enough for multiple global football organizations, because it's likely many of the regional ones will stay with FIFA for the near to medium-term.

What would be better is if they can work together to root out the corruption, but as long as profitability is worshiped as openly as it is, it will tough to fight since money is so concentrated and it's now a kind of self-sustaining entity.

You only need UEFA and CONMEBOL (South America) to agree with each other. Those two confederations include every FIFA World Cup winner so far. If they make their own organization and their own world cup, that's it for FIFA

Other confederations are important for FIFA-internal politics (especially the African votes, Infantino's biggest group of supporters), but for fans and players the quality of the clubs matters far more. And that is geographically clustered

South America’s federation has been supporting Infantno and supported the plan.

But not the nations. At least the Brazilian association is against the plan and arguably the most important.

On the internet, everything is arguable.

On the field, Brazil doesn’t appear to be most important these days.

It's because you probably don't know much about football (soccer?). The Brazilian football clubs dominate South America.

Brazil has 9 Copa America titles.

Fewer than Argentina.

Fewer than Uruguay.

And yes, I acknowledge your cherry-picking was Libradores.

Brazil has the richest league in South America and thus like England its teams can buy better players.

I see what you did there with the 250 years. I just assume you were not talking about football anymore.

> thing with the initial leadership that is well intended, but say 250 years later some one less well intended gets voted in charge

The fundamental problem with FIFA is the revenue body is also the sport’s standards and adjudication body. Split those functions, with one selling tickets and divvying up spoils, while a separate committee polices the sport, and you put aside a lot of the corruption issues unique to FIFA.

National clubs? They can and UEFA considered it but the problem is always buy-in.

FIFA has a billions in revenue and reserves. Many of the supranational areas are developing and need that income support, at least it looks like outreach, even if it's bribery-shaped. Even in developed nations the people who make the decisions have long tenures and like paid lunches and free tickets. Tough one to crack.

Corruption has been part of the game since forever. One of the most infamous world cups was in Argentina during a brutal dictatorship. The one who threw people out of airplanes and took babies from pregnant women.

Argentina had its own version of Pinochet?

UEFA is an international federation.

UEFA is upset about FIFA’s finances because it cuts into UEFA’s finances.

I mean UEFA hasn’t put forward ethically superior plans to finance Futbol development in the poorest parts of Africa, remote Oceania, or tiny Caribean islands.

Indeed, in recent years UEFA has expanded UEFA competitive fixtures to increase revenues via 1. The Nations League, 2. The UEFA Conference League, and 3. The League Phase format of the Champions League and UEFA League.

Each of these is at the expense of countries outside of Europe via reduced opportunities for international friendlies witheuropean clubs, increased club calendars and associated injuries (player injuries have a disproportionate effect on countries with shallower talent pools).

All the UEFA complaints about the expanded world cup (and club world cup) were regarding actions UEFA has pursued in recent years…including the money grab.

If you have to bet, bet its the money not the principle of it.

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