Next Friday, Fifa is expected to elect a new president who isn’t keen on elections. The Bahraini royal Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa has suggested that voters agree on a single candidate before the vote, though modesty precludes him from naming a name. “If we go to election, there will be losers,” he explained. Better to “have a clear indication on who will be elected”. The sheikh sounds like a worthy successor to Sepp Blatter. He does deny complicity in the torture of Bahraini footballers, calling the allegations “nasty lies”.
But Fifa isn’t alone. The International Association of Athletics Federations, tennis, American football, volleyball and various other sports are also sunk in scandal. Why are sports officials so embarrassing?
The history of sport divides into two eras: before TV money, and since. Pre-TV, the old white men who ran sport tended to be pompous but not greedy. From the British toffs who invented modern sport, they had copied Victorian customs: blazers, elaborate titles and bans on women. Having swallowed the Victorian notion that sport builds character, they considered themselves morally superior to governments, business and the press. They also tended to feel superior to grubby players and fans.