FIFA reform needs practical ideas not wild, stupid ones

Inside World Football

Any organisation in crisis prompts outlandish ideas on what should be done to reform it. But even then some of the ideas proposed to reform FIFA are so absurd as to make you wonder if those proposing them are really serious or just seeking sound bytes. That FIFA needs reform is a given. But to reform FIFA we need to understand what kind of an organisation it really is.

It is fundamentally a trade organisation whose trade is football. And like many trade organisations it has peculiar rules like the one which says no organisation that belongs to FIFA can take FIFA to court. Clause 3 of Article 64 entitled "Obligations" imposed on the football associations that make up FIFA could not be clearer or more stringent. And its trade, football, also has peculiar rules such as that a club cannot poach a football player, manager, coaching staff, or anyone connected with its on field football activities, from another club without the permission of the club which employs them.