By Arley Gill From CARIBBEAN360

GEORGE’S, Grenada, Friday June 12, 2015 – It would be fair to say that most persons who seriously follow world football would not have been surprised by the allegations, charges, arrests, extradition requests, resignations that FIFA officials, past and present, are facing.

The reelection of Sepp Blatter as FIFA president was also not a surprise. However, his subsequent announcement that he was stepping down from the presidency was the biggest shock in all of this so far.

The truth is that FIFA, under Blatter, became the most powerful sports organization in the world. ‎It was like a nation without borders, and the president of FIFA was arguably more powerful than leaders of small countries.

The popularity and global nature of the sport meant that FIFA did not need a nuclear weapon or a military to be influential and powerful. Let us be clear: such power, such popularity, could not have been built solely on corruption. There must have been shrewd leadership and prudent decision making to move football to where it is today.

But some persons involved in the organization saw the opportunity to get rich and they did. They got filthy rich. The millions that countries and organizations were willing to pay to get a FIFA tournament, or a contract, or the largest prize – a World Cup – seemed to have provided fertile ground for men with insatiable appetites for greed, to feed. And, oh how they fed!

So, there is no question in my mind that FIFA, over the years, has cultivated a culture of corruption.

Individuals within the sport amassed great wealth. But then came the English losing the bid to host the 2018 World Cup to Russia; and the United States losing the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

‎It must be understood that FIFA has a sort of rotation policy among football confederations, in which different parts of the world get a chance to host the major showpiece event. However, it is my view that the World Cup bid victories by Russia and Qatar caused the uproar in FIFA.

From the time England lost the bid for the 2018 event, allegations of corruption were made. The English media went to work, day and night, to uncover any sign of corruption and, to their credit, they did. In fact, long before the FBI in the United States laid charges, English journalists went to Port of Spain to interview Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice president.

The BBC produced features, as did the Times newspaper and other major media houses in the United Kingdom. The English were clear that they were not taking their loss “sitting down’’.

The Americans, who still call the global sport “soccer’’ to distinguish it from American football, decided that they had enough with FIFA. As a result, they determined to investigate.

My interest here is not so much the corruption in FIFA; there is enough written and reported on this matter and it will continue for a while. What interests me is the geopolitics in the world of football.

Europe has the biggest and wealthiest football leagues. However, when it comes to FIFA, a country the size of Montserrat has the same vote as England. The poor countries of Africa are powerful as a block and as individual countries, as are the developing countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. In other words, the most powerful economic countries in the world are not necessarily the most powerful countries in FIFA.

I am not sure that the members of FIFA from less developed countries were the only ones to benefit from the corrupt culture of FIFA. Fairness demands that corrupt officials should be rooted out not only from poorer countries but from rich countries as well.

It cannot be ignored that the vast majority of the nine current and former FIFA officials indicted are from the Caribbean, Latin America, with only one from the United States. It’s like the region of the Americas wrote the handbook on corruption in FIFA.

I agree that corrupt officials must be brought to justice. But justice does not know race, colour, nationality or wealth of any individual.

The views expressed in this column are solely those of Arley Gill. Arley Gill, a lawyer and magistrate, is a former Grenada minister of culture.

IMAGE: FIFA PRESIDENT SEPP BLATTER

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