FIFA 1975-2000: the business of a football development organisation

Abstract

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is the governing body of world football and in this capacity has assumed the role of a global player in the relationship between sport and politics. While in the 1960s and 70s the organisation produced a growing number of political scandals in world football it has demonstrated a quite effective method of dealing with these problems in more recent times. The article develops the argument that this change for the better is a concomitant of the fact that FIFA, from the 1980s on, is also an extremely dynamic business profiting from the sale of TV rights for the World Cup. This interpretation seeks to understand the role of FIFA as a business against the background of its football development programmes which have made the world soccer federation a most effective International Non-Governmental Organisation. Today, these football development programmes are shaping the way the leading persons in FIFA’s Zurich headquarters are defining their policies. However, this development has had its price, because it has given rise to serious internal political conflicts within FIFA. As a consequence, the organisation’s politics of global integration are extremely vulnerable.