Right, let’s strap in for another dose of footballing reality.
In my previous article, I wrote about Fifa’s transfer ban on Kelantan Red Warriors, a punishment that seemed about as well-aimed as a toddler with a bowling ball.
But now, let’s delve into why Fifa resorts to such blunt instruments and, more importantly, whether there’s a brighter way to run this beautiful, chaotic game.
Fifa isn’t entirely daft. The folks there know that when a club goes belly-up faster than a politician’s approval rating, there’s usually a gaggle of blazers in the background who orchestrated the whole delightful disaster.
These “directors,” often resembling cartoon villains stroking imaginary cats, can bleed a club dry and then vanish into thin air, leaving a trail of unpaid bills and broken dreams.
So why doesn’t Fifa just round these chaps up and give them a good public flogging?
Well, it turns out the legal world isn’t as straightforward as we assume it to be.
Fifa, being a sporting body and not some international Interpol equivalent, faces a legal obstacle more treacherous than navigating the traffic jam at Lebuhraya Pantai Timur on the eve of Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
These corporate culprits hide behind something called “limited liability.” It’s a fancy legal shield that essentially says, “The company’s mess? Not my personal problem, mate!”
To get past this, you need to “pierce the corporate veil,” a legal manoeuvre so complex it makes advanced calculus look like a game of congkak.
You need solid proof of fraud, criminal negligence, or something equally juicy, and that’s the job of national courts, not a bunch of folks in Zurich more used to arguing about offside rules.
Imagine Fifa trying to chase down some slippery former director of a Malaysian club. They would need to navigate Malaysian company law, hire expensive lawyers, and spend years in courtrooms. It’s a logistical and financial nightmare.
Hence, the sledgehammer approach of punishing the club – the sporting entity they can control.
But is there a better way? I’m here to tell you that there is.
It is time Fifa stopped tiptoeing around the edges and started actively encouraging a fundamental shift in club ownership: cooperative societies.
Think about it. A cooperative flips the whole dodgy kebab of ownership on its head.
Instead of some shadowy bloke in a fancy suit calling the shots, the club is owned by the fans – the very people who care about its survival and heritage, the ones who wouldn’t dream of running it into the ground for a quick buck.
And here’s the beauty of it: when things go wrong in a fan-owned cooperative and Fifa has to swing its disciplinary axe, the reaction is different. There’s a shared responsibility.
The fans are the owners. If the club can’t pay its players, they can’t just point a finger at some phantom director who’s probably now running a suspiciously successful durian farm in Raub, Pahang. They have to look in the mirror, metaphorically speaking.
The management they elected messed up, and the consequences are theirs to bear collectively.
The punishment becomes their burden to overcome together. There’s no escaping responsibility by claiming ignorance or blaming some distant boardroom puppet master.
This fosters a sense of unity and a determination to fix the problem from within. It’s a far cry from the current system where fans feel like they’re constantly being screwed over by people who treat their beloved club like a particularly risky cryptocurrency investment.
This isn’t some utopian fantasy. There are clubs around the world proving this model works.
In Germany, the Bundesliga’s “50+1” rule ensures that fans hold the majority of voting rights, protecting clubs like Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund from external investors who prioritise profit over a club’s soul.
In Spain, giants like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are famously owned by their members, who elect the club president.
Perhaps the most famous example is AFC Wimbledon, a club founded by fans after their beloved Wimbledon FC was relocated and rebranded against their will.
They started from scratch in the lower leagues and, through sheer fan power and collective responsibility, climbed back up the English football pyramid and even returned to a new stadium near their spiritual home.
And right in the heart of our own footballing world, we have Kerteh FC, a club that made history by becoming the first in Malaysia to be owned by a supporters’ cooperative.
The club is a living example that this model can work in Malaysia.
Fifa needs to stop being a reactive body handing out transfer bans like parking tickets. They need to be proactive and champion the cooperative model.
Offer incentives, provide guidance, and maybe even make it a licensing requirement for certain levels of competition. Imagine a world where football clubs are truly owned and run by the people who love them most.
Sure, there will still be screw-ups – humans are wonderfully adept at that – but at least the sense of injustice when the hammer falls would be significantly lessened.
So, Fifa, ditch the lazy solutions. Stop chasing legal ghosts through national courts.
Instead, empower the fans. Encourage the cooperative revolution.
It might just be the only way to stop this endless cycle of boom, bust, and bewildered supporters wondering why the beautiful game keeps punching them in the gut.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
