Nigeria Hold Sweden As FIFA Holds Its Breath

With the Women’s World Cup underway in Canada has the pinnacle of the female game been overshadowed by the ongoing scandal at FIFA?

Football is, we are so often reminded by those with a taste for mindless cliché, a game of two halves and yet just recently it appears a more accurate assessment of affairs would probably involve a quoting of Charles Dickens when he said “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. On one hand the Women’s World Cup is off to a spectacularly fabulous start in Canada, and on the other the entirely of FIFA is staffed by money grabbing corrupt old men who’ve been stealing off everyone for years.

Game Of Two Halves

• Women’s World Cup in Canada
• Sepp Blatter under investigation
• Sweden suffer setback against Nigeria

Whilst the Women’s World Cup will eventually work its way through to a conclusion on the 5th of July in Vancouver, the corruption scandal looks set to rumble on far longer as more and more details emerge of the FIFA traditions of bribery, racketeering and cleverly disguised theft. Sepp Blatter, a man with a reputation now so tarnished he makes Pol Pot look like a man who was merely misguided and excitable, still haunts the organization, and a successor might well be just as bad.

For all the investigations now going on into the fiscal irregularities of FIFA’s day to day operations, there is the real possibility that once some sacrificial goats have been tethered where the FBI can find them and chew them up, FIFA will go back to business as usual under the next President. Vast sums of money once again removed from the sport and placed in the pockets of the very people entrusted with the fair and even oversight of international football in a callous display of self-interest and greed.

Of course they all claim FIFA needs root and branch revision, but turkeys don’t tend to vote for Thanksgiving so I wouldn’t hold my breath for a complete dismantling of the manifestly broken system by the very people who stand to benefit from its perpetuation. They’ll just be gambling news coverage in the media will die down or become diffuse so they can go back to feathering their own nests at the expense of the most popular sport on the planet. It sounds bleak, I know, but it’s far more likely than not.

FIFA; Rotten To The Core

One of the biggest problems for FIFA is the continued presence of the ghost of corruption past, Sepp Blatter, who remains President despite having quit, and for some reason isn’t swinging to and fro in the breeze hung by the neck from a lamppost somewhere. Anyone else would have done the decent thing and nibbled on the barrel of a service revolver for all the dishonor they’ve brought upon the sport they supposedly love, but not our Mr. Blatter, a man with less shame than a midget exhibitionist with an erection.

Many remain firmly of the belief that eventually the authorities will catch up with Mr. Blatter and that his arrest and prosecution are all but inevitable, but there are a sizable number of people who can see him wriggling out of any implied involvement, his knowing criminality very likely well-disguised behind an impenetrable, possibly now shredded, paper trail. However as the list of those in police custody grows his continued liberty is highly questionable, but then, the damage is already done.

His mismanagement of FIFA may seem wholly distant from the game the fans actually watch, a background of corruption that had no influence on the game itself, but as the Women’s World Cup in Canada proves his stewardship has had an effect that is both tangible and detrimental. One need only look to the surface the Women are asked to play upon. National Men’s teams would simply refuse to play a world cup on artificial turf, the women are forced to. The gender bias is a disgrace.

However far more disgraceful is Blatter’s own sexism. His comments on how to make the Women’s game more popular insulting, degrading and wholly devoid of any real knowledge of football.
“Female players are pretty.” He said in the manner of a dirty old man, “let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could for example have tighter shorts. They already have some different rules to men, such as playing with a lighter ball.” A fact that simply isn’t true.

Sepp Blatter; Ignorant & Sexist

The Women’s game doesn’t use a lighter ball, as those that like to bet on sports in Sweden will happily inform you having watched their female national side get held to a three all draw against a Nigerian side who came back strong from two goals down at half time. The Group D opening match began with a somewhat surprising own goal from Nigeria’s Desire Oparanozi, and the second easily scored by Nilla Fischer as the Nigerian defense went on a brief holiday. However after the break things changed.

Nigeria rallied well, boosting their odds of lifting the trophy to 125/1, as they leveled the score in a flurry of play that saw Ngozi Okobi and Asisat Oshoala both score in a three minute window. Sweden, ranked fifth in the tournament might have scored a third to put themselves ahead by dint of the efforts of substitute Sebrant, but in the dying minutes of the game their odds of winning the cup were dented by Francisca Ordega blasting a neat drive straight between the legs of the Swedish keeper.

Sweden now stand at 20/1 on sites like ComeOn! Sportsbook lagging behind their opponents, including the Japanese who closed up to 9/1 after their 1-0 win over Switzerland. Naturally the favorites, Germany and the US remain at short odds but with the surprising Nigeria off to face the Australians next, fresh from their loss against the US, and the Swedes facing that very strong US team in Winnipeg, there’s still a lot of room for things to change in this tournament.

Swedish gambling laws might be a little adrift from reality (and EU laws) these days but that is unlikely to stop many residents of the northern nation from backing their ladies team as this lack of victory is all too likely to spur them on. Whilst the US will be far harder opposition than the Nigerians, Sweden have it all to prove and will be going all out to do so, making this one of the more interesting matches ahead, even if they will be using a normal ball and playing in normal kit and not as Sepp Blatter’s sad fantasies would have them, playing in hotpants with a balloon.