ABSTRACT
FIFA, the controlling body for football throughout the globe, has an influence in the sports world that can be matched only by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). When it was founded in Paris in 1904, it had seven members; today that number is close to 200, more than the member nations of the United Nations. The IOC presides over what once was amateur sport, and its Olympic Games acts every four years in tandem with FIFA’s showpiece, the World Cup. Much of the IOC’s time is spent gearing up for its quadrennial feast of sport, and it is only in the bidding for the host city for the games, and the four weeks or so of the actual games, that it occupies centre stage. FIFA, on the other hand, presiding over the world’s most popular game, has no off-season: the World Cup may be the climax, but hardly has it been played than other competitions in each of the six confederations under its control take over; throughout the world at any one time a league or a cup championship is being played with all the fury and devotion that see Association Football dominating the sporting pages and television screens of the media throughout the world. Countries within each of the confederations controlling specific areas of the globe have their own autonomy in certain matters, as have the confederations within FIFA, but it is FIFA that is the ultimate arbiter in all matters concerning the world game.
