mikesiva wrote:Since 2011, according to Fifa, Chad has benefited from 26 projects undertaken by the world governing body. We're talking about artificial pitches, a technical centre, a new HQ for the federation - but also education seminars on marketing, refereeing, grassroots football and so on. The list is long. That pattern is repeated across Africa and around the world. And it has been Mr Blatter who has pushed the programme
FIFA have paid for these projects to be build, but there is no administration or direction from the authorities on how they are maintained, actually physically built or how they are financed to be run once they are built. There have been a few articles floating about for a while now that seem to indicate that the actual facilities being built are inadequate, as FIFA only hand over the cash to the federation with no overall accountability. In fact, in the last few days the Guardian visited a Goal project in Zambia, and it is claimed that the facility is not being used by the National Team because the players find the accommodation of a poor standard, and the pitch has become unplayable and overgrown because its one thing to build a pitch, the other to pay for it to be maintained. The project was actually unfinished also, because the local council who had agreed to donate the land for very little cost, all of a sudden decided the land was worth 200 times more than they were getting.
Its easy to see how a system of monetary manipulation feeds this. The Goal project ignores economic disparity, population, participation numbers, and focuses simply on blanket coverage to ensure votes from poor countries. The amount of donations to China is on par with Montserrat, so FIFA view the importance of 5,000 population to be as equally deserving of funding then the a country with endless potential, population 1.6 billion. But then again, voting power in each is perfectly equal, so why spend money improving Chinese football when you could buy a vote elsewhere.
I wonder how much of the actual money is channelled into local hands, through construction projects set up by people close to the FA, or how much money gets lost. After all, it seems FIFA don't really care about that. Chad is ranked as the most corrupt country in the world, I wonder how much of that money goes straight into corrupt hands and is never seen again. Doesn't really matter, the money has already served its purpose.