. FIFA: some history

3.1 The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in Paris on 21 May 1904. France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland signed the foundation act. The first official international matches under FIFA took place on the continent of Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. The idea of founding an international federation began taking form. In general terms, the intention of FIFA was to recognise the leading role of the English in the game, who had already founded their Football Association in 1863 and the Football League in 1888. Thus, Carl Anton Wilhelm Hirschmann, secretary of the Netherlands Football Association, turned to the English FA for initial guidance and support.

3.2 Ratification for a new European-based football governing body was predictably difficult to obtain from the FAs of the 'home nations' in Great Britain. Instead British arrogance and isolationism and their dominance of the International Football association Board - the rule-making body of the sport - meant tense relations between the British and FIFA until after the Second World War. FIFA started up without the British, who then joined and soon left FIFA over concerns about Germany's involvement after WW I and because of differing definitions of amateurism among FIFA officials. Belgium faced France in the first official international match played under the auspices of FIFA in Brussels on 1 May 1904 - though England and Scotland had actually met in the world's first international match as far back as 1872. Europe dominated the FIFA presidency up until 1974, as Figure 3 shows. The one-country-one-vote election rules today also make it less likely that a European candidate will succeed in future.

Figure 4: Presidents of FIFA, 1904 -

3.3 The following points were determined by the new FIFA in 1904: the reciprocal and exclusive recognition of the National Associations represented and attending; clubs and players were forbidden to play simultaneously for different National Associations; recognition by the other Associations of a player's suspension announced by an Association and the playing of matches according to the Laws of the Game of the Football Association Ltd. Each National Association had to pay an annual fee of FF.50. Already even in these early days, there were thoughts about staging a big football competition and Article 9 stipulated that FIFA alone was entitled to take over the organisation of any international competition for national teams.

3.4 The first FIFA Congress held 23 May 1904 elected Robert Guérin as President. Along with his colleagues Guérin set out to create new national football associations, to attract new members and to convince especially the reluctant English to join. The second FIFA Congress took place in Paris in June 1905. By this time, the Football Associations from Germany, Austria, Italy and Hungary had joined FIFA. At the same time there was talk about an international competition to take place in 1906. Plans were put forward for a four groups, then knock-out, competition, with Switzerland in charge of organising the semi-finals and the Final. Without British involvement , however, it had only limited success.

3.5 On other fronts FIFA was gaining more power and influence. When the 'English Ramblers', an improvised English football club, wanted to play games on the continent without the authorization of the English Football Association, FIFA forbade its own members from playing against this team. This uncompromising procedure impressed the British Associations, and at the next FIFA elections in 1906 an Englishman, Daniel Burley Woolfall, was elected the new FIFA President. Under his guidance, English and continental football became a little more united. Moreover, Woolfall also launched an inexorable battle for international uniformity in the Laws of the Game.

3.6 The idea for a major international football competition was still up in the air and so the Football Association assumed the responsibility for the administration and organisation of a tournament that took place within the context of the Olympic Games in London in 1908. Some problems arose in the organisation, which were still unsolved four years later in 1912, when the same tournament took place in Stockholm. This new sport of football was regarded suspiciously at the Olympics and was considered as a show or entertainment and not a true sporting competition. Key here was the issue of professionalism in football - a thorny problem that would roll on for decades in the relationship between the Olympics and football. Eastern European countries, for example, would eventually send their full international teams to the Olympics, claiming these players were workers - for example, members of the army - rather than professional sportsmen. In the mean time, England won both the 1908 and 1912 Olympic tournaments.

3.7 The first members from overseas joined FIFA in the following order: South Africa in 1909/1910; Argentina and Chile in 1912; and the USA in 1913. After the interlude of World War One, and the death of Burley, Carl Anton Wilhelm Hirschmann carried out his tasks as Honorary Secretary from his offices in Amsterdam and carefully kept the organisation alive. A Frenchman, Jules Rimet became the third FIFA president on 1 March 1921 and up until 1954 (excluding the Second World War) Rimet helped increase the population of FIFA to 85 nations and oversaw five World Cups from 1930 onwards. The first Olympic tournament held under FIFA approval in 1924 had 24 national teams entered - but not the English. The Americans were there and a team representing faraway Uruguay showed the best of the new South American football, much to the delight of the European football public. Uruguay's results were astounding: 7:0 against Yugoslavia, 3:0 against USA, 5:1 against France, 2:1 against the Netherlands. 60,000 spectators followed the Final between Uruguay and Switzerland, which was won by the South Americans 3:0. Uruguay also won the first FIFA World Cup, which was held in that country in 1930, and the South Americans were clearly a powerful force in the world game during this period. Unpopular with the Europeans who faced a difficult trip abroad, only four European teams set off on the long journey: France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Romania. The first World Cup was opened at the Centenary Stadium in Montevideo on 18 July 1930.

Figure 5: Four Stated Objectives of FIFA

3.8 Sweden and Italy applied at the 1932 Congress in Stockholm as candidate countries for the second series of the World Cup finals in 1934. The Executive Committee decided on Italy. Qualifying matches had to be played in order to arrive at the 16 finalists. Right from the start, the knock out system applied and so, the national teams from Brazil and Argentina already had to return home after their first defeat. Once again, the home country prevailed: Italy won the Final against Czechoslovakia in extra-time. For the first time ever, the World Cup Final was transmitted live on the radio, a precursor to the huge, global TV audience which follows the event today.

3.9 In 1946 saw the return of the four British Associations to FIFA. This was again thanks to the diplomatic work of Jules Rimet, who found in Arthur Drewry and Sir Stanley Rous more farsighted partners in the British football establishment. Both would head FIFA in later years. Moreover, the event was celebrated with a match between Great Britain and 'Rest of Europe XI' played at Hampden Park, Glasgow on 10 May 1947. Titled 'Match of the Century' by the chauvinistic British press, the match was attended by a total of 135,000 spectators and receipts amounted to £35,000. As a sign of goodwill, this sum was placed at FIFA's disposal in order to help the latter get over financial difficulties brought on by the war years. The British won 6:1.

3.10 Sir Stanley Rous had been a referee and an amateur player in England and he had also taught in Watford Grammar School. He was part of the new impressive service professionals group emerging in England in the 1930s and Rous helped to modernise the English FA promoting coaching and youth development. But his ambitions as president of FIFA after 1945 also involved restoring British prominence in the world game after the trials of WW2, while building upon the new international relations established during war-time (Sugden and Tomlinson, 1998: 33-5). Some of his ideas about the sport remained romantic and rather anachronistic, promoting the idealised, amateur ethos of international sport as 'recreation' or as friendly rivalry. Havelange's challenge to Rous in 1974 was successful because of the latter's aggressive lobbying and 'political' skills, but also because the new man was willing to offer developing nations more opportunities inside the new FIFA. Havelange was also much more in tune than Rous with the values of the new commercial era of international sports development.

Figure 6: Goalscoring and Attendances in World Cup Final Rounds 1930-1998

3.11 On 11 June 1974, Dr. João Havelange's installation in FIFA's headquarters heralded the dawn of a new, highly commercialised, era for FIFA. Previously, with survival depending almost exclusively on limited resources from World Championships at four-yearly intervals, FIFA had been a somewhat conservative and patrician organisation under Rous when it came to taking decisions. Administrative energy had been concentrated on consolidating and maintaining the status quo. In no time, Havelange transformed an administration-oriented institution into a dynamic, entrepreneurial enterprise brimming with new ideas - and with ambitious new commercial partnerships. The actual address of FIFA in Zurich has not altered but instead of the romantic Derwald Villa on the Zurichberg, where in 1974 a staff of twelve used to coordinate the fate of world football, there is now a modern office building housing almost 100 employees, who are coming to grips with an ever increasing workload.

3.12 Havelange trained as a lawyer but made fortunes in the chemical, insurance and transport industries. He was also a double Olympian for his native Brazil and was later the president of the Brazilian sports federation, transforming the Brazilian game in the 1970s. He was elected onto the International Olympic committee in 1963. Havelange realised that to break the European ascendancy at FIFA he had to appeal much more directly to the interests of the growing number of non-European FIFA members. He did this by pledging his commitment to more resources drawn from new sponsors to move into the developing global football arena. His 'manifesto' for the 1974 FIFA election included a determination to:

3.13 Havelange's success ironically married his appeal to the Third World and its determination to have a 'voice' in the global game with the market aspirations of trans-national commercial organisations whose roots were firmly in the capitalist camp of the First World. The newly found wealth of FIFA made it a very different kind of organisation from the one rather naively envisioned and led by Rous and earlier FIFA presidents. The new FIFA would be both highly commercial and much less in hock to the dominant Europeans. But, as we have already seen, it would also be more open to the sorts of politicising and financial problems which often plague relatively 'closed' and largely unaccountable organisations when commercial interests become so dominant.

3.14 Under Havelange and later his chosen successor Sepp Blatter, FIFA has grown to cover much of the globe and to include 204 member associations, thus making it one of the biggest and certainly the most popular sports federation in the world. Football - and its spread around the globe - is now very closely linked to global business interests. This victory at the 51st FIFA Ordinary Congress in Paris (France) elevated the Brazilian Blatter to president. At the Football Expo in 2001, Blatter announced his intentions to stand as president again, with a promise of the World Cup going to Africa in 2010. There are there possible bids being mooted at the moment, South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt. As cited earlier, it is an interesting irony that his closest rival for the 2002 presidency is actually an African, a Cameroonian. Blatter has clearly not been able to deliver everything to everybody - and his regime is now under close scrutiny.

Figure 7: The World Cup 1930-98: Winners and Runners-Up