FIFA
The
Fédération Internationale de Football Association, known worldwide by its acronym
FIFA, is the international
governing body of
Football (soccer) and the largest sporting organization in the world. Its headquarters are in
Zürich,
Switzerland, and its current
president is
Sepp Blatter.
The need for a single body to oversee the worldwide game became apparent at the beginning of the 20th century with the increasing popularity of international fixtures.
The Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to seven other European countries to band together to form this association. FIFA was founded in
Paris on
May 21,
1904 — the
French name and acronym persist to this day, even outside French-speaking countries. The literal translation into English is "International Federation of
Association Football". Its first president was
Robert Guérin.
FIFA presided over its first international competition in 1906, but this met with little approval or success. This, in combination with economic factors, led to the swift replacement of Guérin with
Daniel Burley Woolfall from
England, by now a member association. The next tournament staged, the football competition for the
1908 Olympics in London was more successful, despite the presence of professional footballers, contrary to the founding principles of FIFA.
Membership of FIFA expanded beyond Europe with the application of
South Africa in 1909,
Argentina and
Chile in 1912 and the
United States in 1913.
FIFA however floundered during
World War I with many players sent off to war and the possibility of travel for international fixtures severely limited. Post-war, following the death of Woolfall, the organisation fell into the hands of Dutchman
Carl Hirschmann. It was saved from extinction, but at the cost of the withdrawal of the
Home Nations, who cited an unwillingness to participate in international competitions with their recent World War enemies.
The FIFA collection is held by the
National Football Museum in
England.
Jules Rimet became the third President of FIFA in 1921. He presided over another two successful Olympic competitions despite the absence of
England and
Scotland, but the success of the competitions, combined with the rising profile of the game, allowed FIFA to seriously consider, for the first time, staging its own regular World Championship.
Talks on the matter began in 1928, and the first
World Cup took place in
Uruguay in
1930 and was won by the home nation. Despite the reluctance of participation from European nations due to the travel time required and the ongoing
economic depression, the tournament was considered a success and plans were laid for the next World Cup in
1934, in
Italy. Excluding a break for
World War II, the World Cup has been held once every four years.
The current World Cup champions are
Italy, who won the most recent edition (the
2006 FIFA World Cup) defeating
France in a
penalty shootout. The next tournament will be held four years hence, as the
2010 FIFA World Cup in
South Africa.
Aside from the World Cup and Olympic competitions, FIFA organises World Championships for players at
under-17 level and
under-20 level. In addition to this, it has introduced the
Confederations Cup, a competition for the champions from each confederation (plus the hosts and World Cup Winners), every four years. Originally organised by and held in
Saudi Arabia every two years as the
King Fahd Cup, it now serves as a prelude to the World Cup, with the World Cup host staging the tournament as a test of facilities.
With the development of the women's game, FIFA introduced the
Women's World Cup in 1991 and the
Women's Under-20 World Championship in 2002 (started as U-19, will become U-20 in 2006). A
U-17 women's championship will start in 2008.
FIFA's only major
club competition is the
FIFA Club World Cup. It was slated as the natural progression of the
European/South American Cup (which itself ran under a variety of names) to include clubs from all confederations. The tournament was not warmly received on its debut in
2000 and its 2002 edition was cancelled. Three years later, with a shorter revised format, the tournament returned for its
2005 edition in
Japan.
FIFA also presides over World Cups in modified forms of the game including
beach football (the
FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup) and
futsal (the
FIFA Futsal World Championship).
The
laws of football that govern the game are not solely the responsibility of FIFA; they are maintained by a body called the
International Football Association Board (IFAB). FIFA has a 50% representation on its board (four representatives); the other four are provided by the football associations of
England,
Scotland,
Wales, and
Northern Ireland, in recognition of the unique contribution to the creation and history of the game of the nations now comprising the
United Kingdom.
|
Map of the World with the six confederations. |
Under the auspices of the President, FIFA is split into six confederations which oversee the game in the different continents and regions of the world. National federations must claim membership to both FIFA and the confederation in which their nation is geographically resident for their teams to qualify for entry to FIFA's competitions (with a few geographic exceptions listed below):
AFC - Asian Football Confederation in
Asia and
Australia:
CAF - Confédération Africaine de Football in
Africa:
CONCACAF - Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football in
North America and
Central America:
CONMEBOL - Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol in
South America:
OFC - Oceania Football Confederation in
Oceania:
UEFA - Union of European Football Associations in
Europe.
Nations straddling the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia have generally had their choice of confederation. As a result, nations including
Russia and
Turkey have chosen to become part of UEFA despite the bulk of their land area being in Asia.
Israel, although lying entirely within Asia, joined UEFA in 1994, after decades of isolation by many of its Middle Eastern neighbours.
Kazakhstan was the latest nation to make the move from AFC to UEFA, in 2002.
Guyana and
Suriname have always been CONCACAF members despite being South American countries.
Australia have been given permission to join the AFC instead of the OFC from 2006 onwards. Australia have long lobbied for a change, because
their national team is very much stronger than the other Oceania teams. No team from the OFC is offered automatic qualification to the World Cup; instead the winner of their section must play a play-off against a CONMEBOL side, a hurdle at which Australia have traditionally fallen. Perhaps ironically, Australia successfully qualified for the
2006 FIFA World Cup by winning
just such a playoff in a
penalty shootout against , just a few months after the clearance to move was granted.
In total, FIFA recognises 207 national federations and their associated national teams; see the
list of national football teams and their respective
country codes. The
FIFA World Rankings are updated monthly and rank each team based on their performance in international competitions, qualifiers, and friendly matches. There is also a
world ranking for women's football, updated four times a year.
FIFA awards, each year, the title of
FIFA World Player of the Year to the most prestigious player of the year, as part of its annual awards ceremony which also recognises team and international football achievements.
As part of its centennial celebrations in 2004, FIFA organised a "Match of the Century" between
France and
Brazil, the most successful national teams of the last decade. In addition, it commissioned arguably the most famous player ever,
Pelé, to produce a list of the greatest players of all time. This list, the
FIFA 100, included 50 players who were still actively playing at the time of publication (
one of whom was female), and 75 retired players (including himself and
one woman, but not including deceased players). The list was originally planned to be just 100 players long but Pelé is understood to have found it too hard to choose just 100 and so the list actually names 125 players.
FIFA announced in April 2004 that it is expecting to earn $144 million profit on $1.64 billion in revenue between 2003 and 2006 (the 4 year cycle including the 2006 World Cup).
FIFA has licensed its name and copyrighted content to
computer game designer
EA Sports to provide a number of football simulation games for the
PC and various
game consoles. A new installment in this
FIFA series of games is introduced each year, and additional versions are released with World Cup branding to coincide with these tournaments. 2005 saw an additional "urban football" video game franchise,
FIFA Street.
In May 2006 British investigative reporter
Andrew Jennings' book
Foul (
Harper Collins) caused controversy within the football world by detailing an alleged international cash-for-contracts scandal following the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL, and revealed how some football officials have been urged to secretly repay the sweeteners they received.The book also exposed the vote-rigging that went on behind closed doors in the fight for Sepp Blatter's continued control of FIFA.
*Paul Darby,
Africa, Football and Fifa: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance (Sport in the Global Society), Frank Cass Publishers 2002, ISBN 071468029X
*John Sugden,
FIFA and the Contest For World Football, Polity Press 1998, ISBN 0745616615
Women's Soccer: The Game and the Fifa World Cup, ed. by Jim Trecker Charles Miers, Universe 2000, Revised Edition, ISBN 0789305275
*
FIFA web site*[
1]- alleged FIFA corruption
*[
2]- new book on FIFA
