FIFA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, known worldwide by its acronym FIFA, is the international governing body of Football (soccer) and the largest sporting organization in the world. Its headquarters are in Zürich, Switzerland, and its current president is Sepp Blatter.
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[edit] History
The need for a single body to oversee the worldwide game became apparent at the beginning of the 20th century with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to seven other European countries to band together to form this association. FIFA was founded in Paris on May 21, 1904 — the French name and acronym persist to this day, even outside French-speaking countries. The literal translation into English is "International Federation of Association Football". Its first president was Robert Guérin.
FIFA presided over its first international competition in 1906, but this met with little approval or success. This, in combination with economic factors, led to the swift replacement of Guérin with Daniel Burley Woolfall from England, by now a member association. The next tournament staged, the football competition for the 1908 Olympics in London was more successful, despite the presence of professional footballers, contrary to the founding principles of FIFA.
Membership of FIFA expanded beyond Europe with the application of South Africa in 1909, Argentina and Chile in 1912 and the United States in 1913.
FIFA however floundered during World War I with many players sent off to war and the possibility of travel for international fixtures severely limited. Post-war, following the death of Woolfall, the organisation fell into the hands of Dutchman Carl Hirschmann. It was saved from extinction, but at the cost of the withdrawal of the Home Nations, who cited an unwillingness to participate in international competitions with their recent World War enemies.
The FIFA collection is held by the National Football Museum in England.
[edit] The World Cup
Jules Rimet became the third President of FIFA in 1921. He presided over another two successful Olympic competitions despite the absence of England and Scotland, but the success of the competitions, combined with the rising profile of the game, allowed FIFA to seriously consider, for the first time, staging its own regular World Championship.
Talks on the matter began in 1928, and the first World Cup took place in Uruguay in 1930 and was won by the home nation. Despite the reluctance of participation from European nations due to the travel time required and the ongoing economic depression, the tournament was considered a success and plans were laid for the next World Cup in 1934, in Italy. Excluding a break for World War II, the World Cup has been held once every four years.
The current World Cup champions are Italy, who won the most recent edition (the 2006 FIFA World Cup) defeating France in a penalty shootout. The next tournament will be held four years hence, as the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
[edit] Other tournaments
Aside from the World Cup and Olympic competitions, FIFA organises World Championships for players at under-17 level and under-20 level. In addition to this, it has introduced the Confederations Cup, a competition for the champions from each confederation (plus the hosts and World Cup Winners), every four years. Originally organised by and held in Saudi Arabia every two years as the King Fahd Cup, it now serves as a prelude to the World Cup, with the World Cup host staging the tournament as a test of facilities. The current Confederations Cup champions are Brazil who defeated Argentina 4-1 in Germany.
With the development of the women's game, FIFA introduced the Women's World Cup in 1991 and the Women's Under-20 World Championship in 2002 (started as U-19, is now U-20 from 2006). An U-17 women's championship will start in 2008.
FIFA's only major club competition is the FIFA Club World Cup. It was slated as the natural progression of the European/South American Cup (which itself ran under a variety of names) to include clubs from all confederations. The tournament was not warmly received on its debut in 2000 and its 2002 edition was cancelled. Three years later, with a shorter revised format, the tournament returned for its 2005 edition in Japan.
FIFA also presides over World Cups in modified forms of the game including beach football (the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup) and futsal (the FIFA Futsal World Championship).
[edit] Laws of the game
The laws of football that govern the game are not solely the responsibility of FIFA; they are maintained by a body called the International Football Association Board (IFAB). FIFA has a 50% representation on its board (four representatives); the other four are provided by the football associations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, in recognition of the unique contribution to the creation and history of the game of the nations now comprising the United Kingdom.
[edit] Structure
Under the auspices of the President, FIFA is split into six confederations which oversee the game in the different continents and regions of the world. National federations must claim membership to both FIFA and the confederation in which their nation is geographically resident for their teams to qualify for entry to FIFA's competitions (with a few geographic exceptions listed below):
- AFC - Asian Football Confederation in Asia and Australia
- CAF - Confédération Africaine de Football in Africa
- CONCACAF - Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football in North America and Central America
- CONMEBOL - Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol in South America
- OFC - Oceania Football Confederation in Oceania
- UEFA - Union of European Football Associations in Europe.
Nations straddling the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia have generally had their choice of confederation. As a result, a number of transcontinental nations including Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan have chosen to become part of UEFA despite the bulk of their land area being in Asia. Israel, although lying entirely within Asia, joined UEFA in 1994, after decades of isolation by many of its Middle Eastern neighbours. Kazakhstan was the latest nation to make the move from AFC to UEFA, in 2002.
Guyana and Suriname have always been CONCACAF members despite being South American countries.
Australia have been given permission to join the AFC instead of the OFC from 2006 onwards. Australia have long lobbied for a change, because their national team is very much stronger than the other Oceania teams. No team from the OFC is offered automatic qualification to the World Cup; instead the winner of their section must play a play-off against a CONMEBOL side, a hurdle at which Australia have traditionally fallen. Perhaps ironically, Australia successfully qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup by winning just such a playoff in a penalty shootout against Uruguay, just a few months after the clearance to move was granted.
In total, FIFA recognises 207 national federations and their associated men's national teams as well as 129 women's nationals teams; see the list of national football teams and their respective country codes. The FIFA World Rankings are updated monthly and rank each team based on their performance in international competitions, qualifiers, and friendly matches. There is also a world ranking for women's football, updated four times a year.
[edit] Recognitions and awards
FIFA awards, each year, the title of FIFA World Player of the Year to the most prestigious player of the year, as part of its annual awards ceremony which also recognises team and international football achievements.
As part of its centennial celebrations in 2004, FIFA organised a "Match of the Century" between France and Brazil, the most successful national teams of the last decade. In addition, it commissioned arguably the most famous player ever, Pelé, to produce a list of the greatest players of all time. This list, the FIFA 100, included 50 players who were still actively playing at the time of publication (one of whom was female), and 75 retired players (including himself and one woman, but not including deceased players). The list was originally planned to be just 100 players long but Pelé is understood to have found it too hard to choose just 100 and so the list actually names 125 players.
[edit] Commercial activities
FIFA announced in April 2004 that it is expecting to earn $144 million profit on $1.64 billion in revenue between 2003 and 2006 (the 4 year cycle including the 2006 World Cup).
FIFA has licensed its name and copyrighted content to computer game designer EA Sports to provide a number of football simulation games for the PC and various game consoles. A new installment in this FIFA series of games is introduced each year, and additional versions are released with World Cup branding to coincide with these tournaments. 2005 saw an additional "urban football" video game franchise, FIFA Street and its sequel FIFA Street 2. In August 2006 EA & FIFA announced that they would be extending their exclusive deal for another four years, covering the 2010/11 season [1].
[edit] Allegations of financial irregularities
In May 2006 British investigative reporter Andrew Jennings' book Foul (Harper Collins) caused controversy within the football world by detailing an alleged international cash-for-contracts scandal following the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL, and revealed how some football officials have been urged to secretly repay the sweeteners they received. The book also exposed the vote-rigging that went on behind closed doors in the fight for Sepp Blatter's continued control of FIFA.
Nearly simultaneous with the release of Foul was a BBC television expose by Jennings and BBC producer Roger Corke for the BBC news programme Panorama. In this hour-long programme screened on June 11, 2006, Jennings and the Panorama team submit that Sepp Blatter is being investigated by Swiss police over his role in a secret deal to repay more than £1m worth of bribes pocketed by football officials.
All testimonies offered in the Panorama expose were done via disguise of voice, person, or both, save one; Mel Brennan, a university professor in the United States, former Head of Special Projects for CONCACAF and a FIFA delegate, became the first high-level football insider to go public with substantial allegations of financial malfeasance by CONCACAF and by FIFA. His book, The Apprentice: Tragicomic Times Among the Men Running - and Ruining - World Football is due out in late 2006 or early 2007.
[edit] Further reading
- Paul Darby, Africa, Football and Fifa: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance (Sport in the Global Society), Frank Cass Publishers 2002, ISBN 0-7146-8029-X
- John Sugden, FIFA and the Contest For World Football, Polity Press 1998, ISBN 0-7456-1661-5
- Women's Soccer: The Game and the Fifa World Cup, ed. by Jim Trecker Charles Miers, Universe 2000, Revised Edition, ISBN 0-7893-0527-5
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- FIFA web site
- [1]- alleged FIFA corruption
- [2]- new book on FIFA
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Fédération Internationale de Volleyball
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) is the international governing body for the sport of volleyball. Its headquarters are located in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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[edit] History
The FIVB was founded in Paris, France in 1947. In the late 1940s, some of the European national federations began to address the issue of creating an international governing body for the sport of volleyball. Initial discussions eventually lead to the installation of a Constitutive Congress in 1947. Fourteen national federations representing five different continents attended the meetings where, between April 18 and 20, the entity was officially formed, having Frenchman Mr. Paul Libaud as first president.
One of the main goals of the 1947 Congress was achieved two years later with the establishment of the first international major volleyball event, the World Championship. In 1952, a women's version of the tournament was also introduced.
In 1964, the IOC endorsed the addition of volleyball to the Olympic program. By this time, the number of national federations affiliated to the FIVB had grown to 89. Later in that year (1969), a new international event, the World Cup was introduced. It would be turned into a qualifying event for the Olympic Games in 1991.
Following the retirement of Mr. Libaud and the election of Mexican Mr. Rubén Acosta Hernandez for the position of president in 1984, the FIVB moved its headquarters from Paris, France to Lausanne, Switzerland and intensified to an unprecedented level its policy of promoting volleyball on a worldwide basis. Measures taken in this direction include the establishment of annual competitions for men's and women's volleyball (the World League, in 1990, and the Grand Prix, in 1993), the indication of Beach volleyball as an Olympic event (1996) and a number of changes in the rules of the game with the purpose of enhancing public visibility.
As of 2006, the FIVB counted 219 affiliated national federations.
[edit] Activities
The FIVB's main activity is worldwide planning and organization of volleyball events, sometimes in conjunction with other international governing bodies such as the IOC. This involves defining qualification procedures and competition formulae for tournaments, as well as more specific details such as player line-up and replacement restrictions, venues and hosts.
Amongst others, the FIVB organizes the following international volleyball events:
and also:
- Men´s U21 Volleyball World Championship
- Women´s U20 World Championship
- Boy´s U19 World Championship
- Girl´s U18 World Championship
The FIVB also participates directly in the organization of continental volleyball events which have an attached international significance, such as Olympic and World Championship continental qualification tournaments.
Another relevant area of concern is the promotion of volleyball in a worldwide scale. Part of the FIVB's activities in this area consists in attracting media partners and sponsors through negotiation of commercial rights for broadcasting and coverage of major events.
The FIVB also maintains extensive special programmes aimed at the advance of world volleyball. This includes the constitution of development centers in areas where the sport is still unpopular, as well as support (in instruction and equipment) for organizations that fail to meet the quality standards required on an international level.
The FIVB is responsible for the standardization of volleyball rules. In recent years, many changes were implemented in connection with its promotional and marketing vision, in an alleged attempt to improve public visibility and make the sport comply to the demands of sponsors and media organizations. These changes range from ingenuous, almost commonplace restrictions, such as the obligation of a "fashionable" uniform - meaning tight clothing, supposed to be more appealing to the audience because it makes players bodies salient -, to very drastic changes in the format of competitions (e.g., the rally-point system).
The FIVB is the ultimate international authority in volleyball, and judges (or is involved at least to some degree in the judgement) issues such as doping, regulation of player transfer, nationality changes and gender determination. It also publishes the FIVB World Rankings, used as basis for seeding in international competitions.
[edit] Organization
The FIVB has a very comprehensive and extensive administrative structure, consisting of a Board of Administration, an Executive Committee and a number of commissions and councils dealing with specific volleyball matters such as medicine, referees, tournaments and finance.
The FIVB also presides over five continental confederations:
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