Reform vital after Fifa's chronic loss of credibility

A DECADE of opportunity awaits Fifa. With the host nations for the next three World Cups having been agreed, football's world governing body does not have to go through the process again until the time comes to vote for the destination of the 2026 tournament - and there is no compelling reason for that vote to be held more than five or six years in advance.

• Vladimir Putin made a beeline for Zurich after Russia's success was confirmed

So, with the next hectic round of global travel and stadium inspections some way off, there has never been a more opportune time for the organisation to turn its gaze inwards. Fifa President Sepp Blatter has already issued an unconvincing, loosely worded promise to examine some of the issues raised during the bidding process which ended this week: for the sake of the game, that and much more has to be done.

At 74, Blatter may be looking forward to a rest from the turmoil which has engulfed his organisation over the past year and more, culminating in Thursday's vote to hold the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the one four years later in Qatar. But, having been in charge throughout a period in which Fifa has haemorrhaged credibility, he does not deserve one.

Football is the most popular sport in the world, the most widespread, the most glamorous. It inspires hundreds of millions of young adults and children to make extraordinary efforts to better themselves. It is the source of so many dreams - yet it is run by a cynical, self-serving cabal of old men.

Two aspects, in particular, of the way in which Fifa functions are in desperate need of reform. One is the way in which it votes for World Cup hosts - who has a vote, and how they are allowed to behave. The other is the supposed vision which informs that vote.

The executive committee which voted for Russia and Qatar usually consists of 24 individuals, but only 22 voted on Thursday, the other two having been suspended by Fifa's ethics committee for breaches of the rules. Those breaches were unearthed not by the ethics committee itself or by any other act of self-policing, but by a British newspaper. There is little doubt that but for that Sunday Times report, all 24 men would have voted two days ago. Those two dozen members of the executive committee do come from all around the world, but there is no guarantee that they will represent the interests of the part of the planet they come from. Remember Charlie Dempsey?

In 2000, the Scottish-born head of the Oceania confederation attended the voting for the 2006 World Cup under instructions to vote for South Africa should England be eliminated. Instead, when South Africa was up against Germany in the final round of voting, he abstained, handing victory to the Germans.

Dempsey, who died in 2008, was subjected to angry questioning from members of his own federation, and eventually resigned his Fifa post two years early, but by then the damage was done. And until the system is reformed to ensure that delegates vote as instructed by their federations, that damage could recur.

In the case of South Africa, of course, that particular wrong was righted this year when it became the first African nation to host the World Cup. But there is no guarantee of that happening in future - indeed, given what happened on Thursday there appears to be a far greater probability that Fifa will continue to get things wrong.

Russia's 2018 victory is not the issue here. No matter what we may think of that country's political leadership or the way in which it pitched its bid, and no matter either how much we may have wanted to see the tournament hosted far closer to home, there is at least a plausible rationale for that decision.

Fifa aims to grow the game, to expand football in under-developed markets, and to spread its showcase tournament around. Covering a vast territory, Russia has a population of some 140 million and a thriving football leaguie structure, yet it has never hosted the World Cup or the European Championship. In other words, it fits the bill.

But Qatar? Other than the fact that it, too, has yet to host an event of this magnitude, the small Arabian state does not meet Fifa's own criteria.

No matter how ardent a following football has among the one million or so Qataris, the sport will simply not be making sustainable progress by going there in 2022. Even if the actual matches turn out to be the greatest ever seen, there will be no lasting legacy from the event. If Fifa's elite electorate were serious about making football available to ever greater numbers, they would have voted for Australia. As their workimgs are about as transparent as a wet fog in the Gobi Desert, we can only speculate as to why they voted for Qatar instead.

To an extent, of course, the world gets the world governing body that it deserves. Blatter and his colleagues are not evil clones churned out by some mad scientist: they come from around the planet, and at least at one time most if not all of them enjoyed the esteem of compatriots who voted them into power. In that sense, it is the responsibility of individual football associations, and then of regional federations, to ensure that the delegates they send to Fifa are as incorruptible as it is possible to be - or that they can be swiftly dismissed if they fail to fulfil their mandate. But world governing bodies also need to take a lead, and Fifa, as the self-styled guardians of the game, have a duty to reform themselves.

In an ideal world, we would have awoken this morning to find that each and every member of the executive committee had resigned in shame and sloped off to spend the rest of his days in a closed order of penitents. Failing that, we can only keep up the pressure on them all to mend their ways (in most cases by resigning) before they inflcit further damage on the sport they purport to serve.