World Cup bids, Sepp Blatter and the Russians

With the shadow of Vancouver over him, Vitaly Mutko may now be the most highly motivated lobbyist in the world, writes Ken Early.

 

Russia's sports minister Vitaly Mutko flew to the Vancouver Olympics last February knowing exactly what was expected of him. The Motherland had invested more than $200m in the winter sports programme and the team's target was 30 medals and a place among the top three participating nations. Instead Russia suffered its worst performance at a post-war Olympics. Even the Netherlands won more golds.

President Medvedev had felt the sting of sporting humiliation the previous November, when he travelled to Maribor to see Russia knocked out of the World Cup by Slovenia. "Those who bear the responsibility for Olympic preparations... should take the courageous decision to hand in their notice," he raged. "If we don't see such decisiveness, we will help them." Two days later the head of Russia's Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachev, duly stepped down. Yet Mutko kept his job.

Then, in July, Russian media reported that Mutko had claimed expenses for 97 breakfasts during his 20 day trip to Vancouver. He had stayed in a hotel suite costing $1,408 a night even though the official accommodation allowance was just $150 a night, and his wife had flown to Vancouver for free. And still he kept his job.

The Vancouver shadow

Russia's leadership does not usually suffer fools gladly. Mutko is different because when he is not running the sports ministry, he sits on the 24-man FIFA executive committee that on December 2nd will vote to decide who hosts the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. With the shadow of Vancouver over him, Vitaly Mutko may now be the most highly motivated lobbyist in the world.

His mission is to help convince a majority of his ExCo colleagues that a World Cup scattered across the huge expanses of European Russia makes more sense than a tournament confined to cosier countries like England, Spain/Portugal or Belgium/Holland. Does he have a convincing case, or will he end up a broken, hunted man, tearfully comfort-eating breakfasts as he awaits that fateful knock on the door? That depends on what the World Cup is really all about.

It (the World Cup) is still the biggest football event in terms of attention and prestige, but in terms of quality it has long been surpassed by the Champions League.

It began as a serious sports competition designed to discover the best team in the world. That idea faded out with the globalisation of the club game and the bloating of the tournament to 32 teams. It is still the biggest football event in terms of attention and prestige, but in terms of quality it has long been surpassed by the Champions League. Given that the World Cup stopped being about the football years ago, it seems pointless to compare the rival bids' football facilities.

In the age of tourism the tournament can also be seen as a sports festival which is meant to be fun for the hundreds of thousands of people who go to see it. The main consideration for these fans is transport. Russia's bid organises the host cities into "venue clusters" which are supposed to make it easy for fans. But Russia is so big that the Volga River venue cluster alone covers an area not much smaller than that delineated by South Africa's World Cup cities. The coastal city of Sochi is 140km long. Obviously the Russian bid is the toughest prospect for travelling fans. TV audience figures are much more important to FIFA, but empty seats look bad on TV.

Blatter: The Bono of FIFA

A third model sees international sports events as a propaganda opportunity for the host country. This model was fashionable in the 1930s and is resurgent after South Africa's World Cup and the mind-blowing spectacle of the Beijing Olympics. The Russian bid promises to "surprise and astound", which sounds as close as you can get in peacetime to shock and awe. We can be confident that Russia, by then probably back under the benign rule of President Putin, would comfortably outboast the trifling West Europeans.

Remember, though, that FIFA decides who gets the World Cup, and in FIFA's eyes the World Cup is really all about FIFA. President Sepp Blatter, the Bono of sports administration, is fresh from the emancipation of Africa (his highlights included upstaging president Jacob Zuma at the concert to mark the World Cup's opening, and pressuring the grieving Nelson Mandela into coming out on a freezing night to be wheeled around the pitch before the Final). This international secular pope is ready to bestow another celebration of humanity upon a grateful world. Who is most deserving?

Blatter does not personally decide where the World Cup will go, but as President he has significant influence over the committee. In August, he said: "The easiest way to organise the World Cup is to go to England. Everything is there – fans, stadiums, infrastructure – it’s easy." The British media interpreted this as a boost to England's bid. But Blatter continued: "You cannot deny Russia if they bid for something. They are more than a country. They are a big continent, a big power."

Russian confidence

As an authoritarian petro-state, Russia has money to burn on FIFA's prestige project. They will spend up to $300m on each of 16 stadiums, of which 14 will be built from scratch, and invest heavily in supporting infrastructure. The latter sum is so large as to be virtually uncountable - bid CEO Alexei Sorokin says "I can't say if it's $180 billion, $500 billion or whatever."

Russia isn't really basing its national future on the dream of hosting the World Cup. A lot of that infrastructure will be built anyway. But they show a shrewd grasp of FIFA's psychology by pretending that the tournament will be the trigger for a vast social change. A Russian World Cup will "inspire Eastern Europe by choosing a Host Country from the former Soviet bloc" and "take the game to new hearts and minds, reaching young people across Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East."

The question is: does Sepp Blatter see himself as an ordinary sports administrator who takes the easy option, or a visionary whose influence can exalt the spirits of a benighted people, and a statesman who can conquer a virgin continent? The answer to that seems pretty clear, and if Blatter has anything to do with it, the Russian bid has a lot to be confident about.

Ken Early is chief football correspondent for Newstalk 106-108FM. He will write a regular column for JOE.ie throughout the football season.