Should Fifa make decisions on which country is best suited to host the World Cup based on whether or not media in the particular country "insult" or not the high command of the international football federation? It is one of a series of interesting issues now alive because of the revelation by Fifa Vice-president Jack Warner that allegations in the English media played a significant role in the decision of the Fifa executive committee to ignore the bid by England to host the 2018 World Cup. It was well advertised here that the BBC Panorama programme during the week of the vote in Zurich ran stories of corrupt activities allegedly engaged in by at least three senior Fifa officials, including Jack Warner. After what he describes as the "insults" heaped on the Fifa executive committee by the English media, Mr Warner said it would have been an even greater insult for the committee itself to vote for England. Now there is something of a contradiction in Mr Warner's statement, that is if he had been quoted correctly by the international media as having said that he had voted for England in the initial round of voting: If in fact the Fifa vice president did vote for England, was he supporting the insults against the committee?
But beyond Mr Warner's voting in the initial round, there is need for reflection on whether or not a government and perhaps 95 per cent of a country's population should be punished for stories carried and positions taken by its domestic media, more so if the media are independent of the government and the football associations. There must be serious concern when an international sporting body could punish an entire population, obviously enthusiastic for the premier football tournament to be returned to their country after 44 years, not because of a flawed or in some way inadequate bid, but because of "insults" by media houses carrying out what is perceived to be their responsibility to investigate and report. If such power were to be ceded to Fifa it would amount to the world football body being able to exercise control over what is reported and carried in the media through its ability to impose sanctions on a member country simply because the football federation is in disagreement with what particular media houses seek to highlight. When Fifa invites member states to bid to host an event such as the World Cup it would be surprising if included in the criteria for qualification to host the games are stipulations on what a country's media can and cannot do in the lead-up to the voting.
On the other hand, the Fifa executive committee is made up of human beings–not robots and not computers. Clearly, the human reaction is that if someone is subjected to full-scale, humiliating and vitriolic global attacks by reputable media houses on the eve of an important decision, that person would not necessarily be well disposed to the country where those media houses are domiciled. It is almost as though certain segments of the English media wished to stab the country's bid to host World Cup 2018 in the back and ensure that the knife did as much dirty work as possible. As we argued in this space on Monday, this is an issue that has at least three sides to it and while there may be anger in Britain over what they view as Mr Warner's treachery, there is no evidence that he has either an umbilical or colonial link to that country. His allegiance as Fifa vice president is to vote for the country for which the grant of the World Cup prize would maximise the spread of the beautiful game to the far reaches of the world. While there may be continuing concerns about Mr Warner's dual role as minister and Fifa official, those are for T&T's Prime Minister to address in light of these new issues that have been made public.