When Gianni Infantino floated the idea of selling a stake in the commercial rights to the FIFA World Cup, the proposal was met with disbelief and outrage in many corners of football.
Although he was subsequently forced to back away from the idea, the fact that he thought he could get it through in the first place says much about the way that FIFA is governed.
Unlike most major sporting organisations, FIFA operates on the principle of one country, one vote. Every one of its 211 member associations has an equal say at the FIFA Congress, regardless of its size, footballing pedigree or financial contribution to the global game. Brazil carries the same voting power as Mauritius. England’s vote is worth no more than that of San Marino. Germany stands on equal footing with the Faroe Islands.
On paper, the system appears admirably democratic. Every nation is treated equally, reflecting FIFA’s role as the governing body for world football rather than simply its wealthiest and most successful members. Smaller countries have a voice that cannot simply be overridden by Europe’s traditional powers or South America’s football giants.
The reality, however, is more complicated.
A system in which every vote carries identical weight fundamentally changes the political incentives for any FIFA president. Rather than concentrating on winning the support of football’s biggest nations, success depends on assembling a majority across more than 200 national associations. Many of those associations rely heavily on FIFA development funding, infrastructure programmes and financial assistance to grow the game within their own countries.
The history of FIFA demonstrates how effective this strategy can be. João Havelange, Sepp Blatter and now Gianni Infantino have all built extensive electoral coalitions across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Oceania. Those alliances have repeatedly enabled FIFA presidents to withstand criticism from Europe and South America while retaining commanding support within the Congress.
Viewed through that lens, Infantino’s willingness to explore selling part of the World Cup’s commercial rights begins to make more sense. Whether or not the proposal was ultimately practical is almost beside the point. The structure of FIFA means that opposition from England, Germany, Brazil or Argentina alone is unlikely to derail a president who enjoys widespread backing elsewhere.
The purported US $40 million football associations would have got as an upfront payment by agreeing to Infantino’s proposal would have been a drop in the ocean for the football associations of these countries. But for Montserrat, a Caribbean island with a population of just 4,000, it would have meant a payment equivalent to US 10,000 for every inhabitant, man, woman and child.
The system is unlikely to change soon, even once the ripples from the latest scandals have dissipated. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, nor are the smaller football associations likely to want any diminution in their current power. But as long as one vote from Mauritius carries exactly the same weight as one from Brazil, FIFA presidents will continue to govern according to electoral arithmetic rather than football’s traditional balance of power.
