FIFA+-+AUSTRALIA

**Name:** Lydia Ditzenberger **Country:** Australia **Committee:** FIFA **High School:** Arundel **Date:** January 25, 2014

 In December 2010, Brazil, was granted the privilege of hosting the 19th FIFA World Cup 2014. The World Cup will begin on June 12th, 2014. Brazil is often portrayed as a place where kids run and play soccer in the streets, so it’s only logical that they should host the World Cup for a second time. However, the time leading up to the World Cup hasn’t been smooth sailing. It’s been in question for some time as to whether or not Brazil was a smart place to hold the World Cup, so far they’ve had several protests, construction has fallen behind and the infrastructure hasn’t been updated.
 * __Brazil FIFA World Cup Planning & Preparations __**

 Brazil has previously hosted the World Cup in 1950. They also held the Confederations Cup in 2013 and they won for the 3rd time in a row. In order for Brazil to become a host for the FIFA World Cup they had to apply for a bid, FIFA then review the submissions then selects the candidates. Brazil is the largest South American Country and is also has a largely poor population and high level of drug trafficking. When Brazil hosted the 1950 World Cup they built several of the largest stadiums ever. This year they are building even more but they have fallen very behind and may potentially not be ready. There has also been several protest in June that held up the process, people used all the media attention to display their unhappiness about Brazil’s economic and social issues.

 Australia feels that Brazil needs to figure something out about their preparation’s for this World Cup. They’ve fallen so far behind that they might not be able to hold the World Cup which is not appropriate of a country with a rising economy. They should also find a way to handle their protest and keep them for occurring and taking time away from the preparations. They also feel that Brazil should have kept up with their growing economy so that their overall infrastructure wouldn’t need to be changed as well as more stadiums so that they wouldn’t have such a hard time now. However they do hope Brazil is a worthy opponent as in past years for this World Cup. In order to fix the issues arising from hosting the World Cup in Brazil the date should be pushed back. All Brazil needs is a little more time which isn’t on their side right now considering they have a little more than 4 months left until the World Cup. This would also give every country more time to prepare for the World Cup, which anyone who participates in a sport would know. Another possible solution could be for other countries to help Brazil build the stadiums and the rest of their infrastructure. The World Cup is a very intricate part of some cultures so if everyone pitched in a little bit they’d be able to keep their World Cup going.  I’m very excited to be talking about the planning of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil with other countries. Soccer is something I love and I want to see us come up with ideas and share them on ways to help Brazil with their poor in planning. Soccer is a game people have been playing for centuries and a yearly World Cup is now something every soccer fan waits for. If we could come up with a solution and possibly even share it with Brazil we could made peoples day and save Brazil from embarrassment.

 FIFA is in charge of organizing and regulating the international soccer competitions. They have a congress that meets once a year so mainly delegates run FIFA. These delegates come from all countries involved with the FIFA organization. However, each country isn’t fairly represented between all 209 delegates. FIFA is trying to clean up this unfairness within their system and bring back the pure essence of football for everyone to enjoy.
 * __Internal Dysfunction: Structure, Corruption and Financial Fair Play __**

 Soccer hasn’t always had rules, the first set of rules ever introduced was in 1863 by played from London, England. Twenty years later they formed the International Football Association Board to control the rules. Another 21 years later FIFA was formed. Initially all the countries apart of FIFA were European until 1908 when South Africa joined. There’s not a very good system of checks and balances within FIFA’s congress therefore congressional members try to constantly gain power for their country. In 1913 FIFA and IFAB joined together to help spread football everywhere. There are now 209 member nations and six sections; COFNCACAF, UEFA, CAF, AFC, OFC, and CONMEBOL. Bribery is a huge issue among the referees, they can literally determine a game based off of the fouls they call. If a referee is given enough money they can intentionally make a certain team lose and the other win. This is very common among teams whom have billionaires to back them up. Football teams are very hard to maintain and kept running smoothly and investors are constantly looking for new things to raise their intake of cash so they endorse or buy a part of a team, the more money they have, more money referees are paid, more games are won by the team. Racial slurs and gestures among fans and players are also becoming more common making the game less family friendly and less enjoyable.

 Australia knows FIFA is full of corruption and isn’t afraid to let everyone know that. Australia wants to host a World Cup and they even placed a bid but they were rejected by FIFA’s delegates and Qatar was given the honor of hosting the 2022 World Cup. As soon as it was announced Australia wanted to be refunded of the $46 million they put into a bid for the honor of hosting. Qatar had no reason to be a host for the 2022 World Cup they have no major involvement in football, the weather is extremely hot in June and July, nor is Qatar a very big country, this threw a major red flag for Australia. Now they want compensation and FIFA won’t give it, so needless to say Australia isn’t too thrilled with FIFA. FIFA needs to draw some major lines in the sand and stop all of the little shenanigans occurring within the system. They can start with the percentages of delegates within their council, making sure that there is equal representation form each are split between all 209 members, as well as the 24 representatives in Code of Ethics committee. The next step is to cut back on the number of big investors able to invest in a team and have them sign off allowing FIFA to monitor all cash flow to make sure no under the table payoffs are occurring. If under the table payoffs occur the investor must be given a warning and after the third offence no longer allowed to invest in a team. Players and coaches are next, any racial slurs, gestures or other forms of inappropriate conduct will be cause for a 3 game suspension, the second offense will also have a three game suspension, after the third offense they will be kicked off the team for a whole season, if they return after their suspension and conduct any two forms of misconduct they need to be removed from FIFA entirely. Let us keep moving right along to the fans in the stadium, the punishments given to the players and coaches apply to the fans as well. First and second offenses are met with the inability to go to three games, the third the inability to attend games for a whole season, when they come back and complete two offences they will be banned from attending FIFA games.

<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light','sans-serif';"> I’m very excited to be talking about ways to help FIFA reduce the corruption within itself to the lowest minimum humanly possible. Soccer is something I love and I want to see us come up with ideas and share them to help the sport become whole and pure again. Soccer is a game people have been playing for centuries and a yearly World Cup is now something every soccer fan waits for. If we can come up with a solution to help eliminate the corruption in FIFA we could spread the pure love of soccer to everyone again.