Raising Questions Easier Than Finding the Answers

Rumor has it that several of international soccer’s movers and shakers are in town for today’s Gold Cup final.

It’s only a rumor, because these shadowy figures tend to flit--if over-stuffed suits can be said to flit--from first-class airline cabin to stretch limousine to stadium VIP suite without so much as touching the ground.

Soccer might be the sport of the people, but its powerbrokers are well insulated from the great unwashed masses, not to mention we wretches of the media.

And since CONCACAF, whose championship this is, has seen fit not to hold even a single press conference at which its “dignitaries” can be asked where the sport is going and, as important, where the money is going, this forum will have to suffice.

In other words, we depart from the usual today to ask a few of the questions that would and should have been asked had access to soccer’s leaders been available.

First, however, an introduction to those visitors we are led to believe are in town. They are:

* Joao Havelange of Brazil, president of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body.

* Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago, vice president of FIFA and president of CONCACAF.

* Lennart Johansson of Sweden, vice president of FIFA and president of UEFA, European soccer’s ruling body.

* Antonio Mataresse of Italy, vice president of FIFA and UEFA.

* Isaac Sasso Sasso of Costa Rica, FIFA executive committee member.

* Chuck Blazer of the United States, FIFA executive committee member and general secretary of CONCACAF.

* Michel D’Hooghe of Belgium, FIFA executive committee member and president of the Belgian Football Association.

* Angel Villar Llona of Spain, FIFA executive committee member and president of the Spanish Football Federation.

And now the “press conference.”

PELE POWER

Question: Mr. Havelange, would it not make sense for you, at age 82 and in the final few months of your interminable 24-year reign as FIFA president, to patch up your unseemly and unnecessary feud with Pele and accept the fact that his reforms as Brazil’s Minister of Sport can only bring order to the chaotic and corrupt state of the game in Brazil?

Background: Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that will require soccer clubs to become businesses (rather than social organizations) within two years and allow clubs to form their own leagues.

WITHOUT A DWIGHT

Question: Mr. Warner, why did your country, Trinidad and Tobago, grant an exemption to allow its best player, Dwight Yorke, not to play in the Gold Cup and to stay instead with his English Premier League club, Aston Villa? Is that not defeating the very purpose of a championship that is supposed to feature the North and Central American and Caribbean region’s best teams and players?

STILL WAITING

Question: Mr. Johansson, why do FIFA and UEFA continue to make promises about establishing an international soccer calendar--so as to avoid club-versus-country squabbles--and then apparently do nothing about it?

Background: Clubs, especially the big European powers, are forever moaning about losing players to national team duty. The same problem affects Major League Soccer in this country, where it is even more incomprehensible to observers who are not soccer fans.

Whether it is Eduardo Hurtado missing Galaxy games or Ryan Giggs missing Manchester United matches, the problem is only getting worse, not better.

Question: Mr. Johansson, in campaigning for the FIFA presidency you have said you favor rotating the World Cup between the continental confederations. That would mean Europe, the home of the game and its chief source of revenue, holding the tournament only every 20 years. Does that not seem illogical?

Background: The World Cup has never been played in Africa or Oceania and goes to Asia for the first time in 2002. Perhaps a better arrangement might be to award every other tournament to Europe and rotate it among the other confederations. For example:

France in 1998; Japan/South Korea in 2002; South America 2006; Europe 2010; CONCACAF 2014; Europe 2018; Africa 2022, and so on.

If Africa--which has the players buts lacks the infrastructure-- feels slighted by this, split the 2010 event between, say, Spain and Morocco. They are only an hour or so apart by air.

Question: Mr. Johansson, assuming you are elected FIFA president in Paris on June 8 as expected, would you favor limiting the president to two terms from now on? What about also rotating the presidency it among the confederations?

ITALIAN CONNECTION

Question: Mr. Mataresse, should the FIFA presidential election be held in the same year as the World Cup, bringing too much politics into what is intended to be a sporting festival?

Background: Julio Grondona of Argentine, a FIFA vice president, president of the Argentine Football Association and a close crony of Havelange, suggested last week that a change be made in the rules, allowing Havelange to stay in office another two years.

Question: Do you really dislike Joseph “Sepp” Blatter as much as has been reported or is the feud between yourself and FIFA’s general secretary merely a way of backing Johansson by undercutting Blatter as a candidate?

A BADU MOVE

Question: Mr. Sasso, why did you not use your influence in your homeland to stop Costa Rica from firing Valdeir “Badu” Vieira as national team coach?

Background: Vieira, of Brazil, coached Costa Rica to an impressive World Cup qualifying victory over the U.S., was fired in a minor financial disagreement and subsequently led Iran into the World Cup before being released. Costa Rica might have done better by keeping him, since France ’98 is awash with Brazilian coaches, including Mario Lobo Zagalo of Brazil, Carlos Alberto Parreira of Saudi Arabia and Rene Simoes of Jamaica.

TIME FOR A CHANGE

Question: Mr. Blazer, why does CONCACAF insist on holding its championships every two years or three instead of every four like Europe, thus watering down its appeal even more than El Nino already has?

Comment: Africa and South America, too, should hold their tournaments every four years, and in the same year. That would help FIFA set up an international calendar based on a four-year rotation, for example: 1999 women’s world championship and under-17 and under-20 championships, 2000 Olympic Games, 2001 continental championships and 2002 World Cup.

WHOSE IN CHARGE?

Question: Mr. D’Hooghe, the Bosman ruling creating free agency in Europe in 1995 and causing all sorts of problems, stemmed from a lawsuit by a Belgian player, Jean-Marc Bosman. Does that ruling and soccer’s on-going fight with the oh-so-politically-correct but oh-so-short-sighted European Union have wider implications?

Will there come a day, for instance, when the European Union will rule that FIFA and UEFA have no right to prevent clubs, as independent businesses, from locating anywhere they want within the Union?

Could we see, for instance, a cash-strapped and soon to be relegated Napoli moving from Italy to Spain? Or a Rangers wanting better competition and leaving Glasgow for Birmingham? Why are these scenarios viewed as far-fetched, given the precedent of the Bosman ruling?

REAL DOLLARS

Question: Mr. Llona, would the Spanish federation permit Real Madrid to tear down Santiago Bernabeu stadium, as it announced last week it wants to do in order to build a larger stadium outside Madrid?

And if Real really is $100 million in debt as reported, how is it possible that the club can offer $20 million for Brazilian defender/goon Junior Baiano, who has been tossed out of this Gold Cup for viciously elbowing an opponent?

And what about the rumored trade between Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan? Are the clubs really going to swap Christian Vieri for Ronaldo?

Wait a minute. Gentlemen, where are you going? We have more questions. Gentlemen . . . oh, well, the limousines must be waiting.