How The Power Of Geography Is Fracturing World Soccer

In 2010, the U.S. bid to stage soccer’s FIFA World Cup, losing out on the right to host the 2022 tournament after political manoeuvring by others led to Qatar eventually securing the hosting rights.

This marked the start of the Gulf region’s rise as a soccer power, with Qatar Airways and Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil and gas corporation, Aramco, now serving as FIFA sponsors, and the latter ultimately hosting the competition in 2034.

The power of geography – in this case physical, given the region’s fossil fuel wealth – is now widely recognised as a major influence on world soccer’s governing body and its decisions.

America’s influence on soccer

Yet America’s allure never went away; indeed, following 2010’s decision, many in soccer felt that U.S. hosting of national team soccer’s biggest event would eventually become a reality, something confirmed when its successful bid was announced in 2018.

Geography suggested that holding the mega event Stateside would be lucrative, given the U.S.’s position as the world’s largest domestic sports market, where consumers are among the most sophisticated anywhere, and producers are driven by market forces and profitability.

And so it proved to be, as this summer’s tournament became the most commercially and financially successful in history: an event whose lineage stretched from Wall Street in New York to Silicon Valley in California.

FIFA’s rollout of its dynamic ticket pricing strategy, premised on free market economics and revenue generation, and enabled by digital technology, was a perfect illustration of this.

The governing body’s embrace of all things American had already been foretold, as it moved both its financial and legal departments to Miami – currently one of the world’s most dynamic sport clusters.

Private equity plans amplify governance concerns

This trajectory gained momentum when, in the weeks after the World Cup concluded, FIFA’s president – Gianni Infantino – unveiled plans to sell a portion of the World Cup to private equity investors, including a member of the Kushner family.

Figures indicate the deal would have raised $4.2 billion, enabling FIFA to increase payments to its 211 member associations, with, for instance, financial allocations to African countries predicted to receive $2.16 billion between 2027 and 2038.

Successive FIFA presidents have long known that African nations hold great sway in elections for the position; hence, several have routinely courted their support, often through financial inducements; indeed, Infantino faces a presidential vote in 2027.

Concerns about FIFA presidents’ use of financial allocations to garner political support have blighted the organisation for decades, prompting protracted discussions about its governance.

Infantino’s private equity plan reignited the debate, resulting in three continental associations – the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) and Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) – accusing Infantino of breaking trust "through deception", fundamentally undermining "the integrity of [soccer], and the integrity of those elected to lead it".

A matter of Global North and Global South?

Yet the geography of responses to Infantino’s proposals reveals a clear Global North/Global South divide, with countries such as England, Germany and Norway withdrawing support for the president, whilst others including Lebanon, Nicaragua and Sudan have publicly supported him.

This sharp division reveals far more than concerns about a single FIFA initiative, the organisation’s president, or its activities, and poses a significant challenge for anyone who may ultimately seek to unseat Infantino from his position.

Countries from the Global South are commonly characterised by low- to middle-income per capita; they are historically former colonies whose economic systems were shaped by exploitation; and, importantly in the context of FIFA, they are frequently underrepresented in global governance.

As such, there is a tendency among such countries to view Europeans as arrogant and self-serving, perhaps even neo-colonialist, with a desire to at least maintain, or maybe even strengthen, their position of power.

Such power in football is enduring, with Europe having been the home of football governance for more than a century and, more recently, its most lucrative market, with its key stakeholders seemingly intent on securing their position in a dynamic market and a changing world.

Global governance in focus

Or at least that’s often the view from parts of the Global South, though it is somewhat ironic that a European-founded and European based governing body presided over by a Swiss-Italian is the answer to their concerns, implying a political co-dependency between them

But this geographic dichotomy is not simply a matter of history, politics and economics; it is also one of values, with many Europeans questioning the authoritarian, non-consultative nature of Infantino’s approach to governance.

However, this is perhaps less of a concern in some countries than it is in others, particularly where the problems of economic disparity are acute.

In a ranking of global governance by World Economic Research, England, Germany and Norway all achieve an A grade, whereas the likes of Lebanon, Nicaragua and Sudan are given the lowest grades of D and E.

Which suggests either that Infantino and FIFA have sought to take advantage of differing standards or that Europeans and Americans are once again seeking to enforce soccer’s hegemony, especially when faced with threats they find unacceptable.

Either way, one conclusion is that FIFA’s current travails are not just a matter of one man’s vision but of an organisation struggling to govern in a multipolar yet polarising, discordant world, where economic and political power, as well as approaches to governance, sharply deviate.

In other words, geography matters; which means that, if Infantino is to be challenged for his position at the next FIFA presidential election in 2027, it is going to take someone special, a person who is proposing a coalescent, innovative and transformative agenda, to unseat him

This article was originally published on Forbes.com