Why Murdoch's Minions Might Muck Up FIFA

We found out Friday that vuvuzelas will not blare en masse from Arrowhead Stadium in 2018. Now we might have to wait a bit longer to see if Lamar's Lair will welcome the world in 2022.

FIFA executives are now saying that they might postpone their vote on who gets to hose the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals, currently scheduled for 2 December, following a sting expose by The Sunday Times. In their article (complete with undercover videos that are only available via a paid subscription), two Sunday Times reporters pose as English-based lobbyists trying to buy votes for the US' 2022 bid. In particular, they entertain offers from the presidents of football federations in Nigeria and Tahiti, both of whom are on FIFA's executive board and wield clout amongst the African and Oceania confederations.

FIFA have vowed to move swiftly with their investigation, and could suspend the impugned executives as early as Wednesday. Additionally, FIFA's ethics committee are reported to also be investigating reports of collusion between bidding committees, likely concerning vote swaps. While it could be another potential embarrassment for England's hopes to host the 2018 finals, there just might be an underlying reason for this. (Please convert your old UHF antennae into tinfoil hats… now.)

The Sunday Times is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation conglomerate, the same conglomerate that owns the Sky network of channels in the UK and the Fox networks in the US and Australia. Despite building much of their sport coverage on association football (namely Fox Soccer and Soccer Plus in the US and Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday), none of these channels have ever broadcast the sporting event that's surpassed even the Summer Olympics in cumulative audience numbers.

Since 1994, coverage rights of the World Cup in the US have been owned by ABC, whose parent company Disney also owns ESPN. In England, broadcast rights are split between ITV and the BBC. However, the current partnership is due to expire after the 2014 finals in Brazil, with no current indication of either the partnership being renewed or the World Cup remaining on a government list of sporting events required to be shown on free-to-air broadcasters. In Australia, semi-public broadcaster SBS have the rights.

While a majority of major US sporting events remain on terrestrial or basic cable/satellite channels, in Britain most anything not on the government's protected list has been picked up by Sky or ESPN (which replaced Setanta Sports when the Irish-based channel collapsed last year) on a pay-to-air basis. This includes all Premier League fixtures and high-profile cricket Test series, namely The Ashes.

Were England to win the 2018 bid and either Australia or the United States to follow in 2022, News Corp. would have home turf for eight years. While their newspapers would generate a large following reporting on preparations and whipping up support by way of nationalistic headlines atop The Sun and New York Post, an even larger chunk of revenue could come to them if they had exclusive rights to broadcast coverage in all three nations. Granted, it might not go down well were Fox to pre-empt habitual coverage of Cardinals baseball and NASCAR with 22 guys in shorts chipping a ball around. But the audiences, ad revenue, and ability to force subscribers to pay to view every game would generate far more revenue and profit for News Corp.

While such an insinuation–that a media conglomerate would conspire against its nations' interests as to prevent their domestic competitors from raking in millions–would need a ton of concrete evidence to support, the circumstances seem to connect (if only within the cosy confines of a tinfoil hat). Why would The Sunday Times pose as agents acting on behalf of the US Soccer Federation to sting and expose two corrupt voters that representatives from England's bid courted early in the process? Is it possible that, knowing that the status quo for broadcasting World Cup games will remain in place, News Corp is seeking to undermine or derail the bidding process as to prevent their competition from milking the home-field advantage?

Such a scenario, even if true, would be preposterous to believe and damning if accurate. But should English-speaking nations prevail come December, I suspect the current broadcasters will quickly ink new deals to extend their coverage rights and secure the eventual windfall from broadcasting the world's biggest single-sport spectacle, much to the dismay of Murdoch's empire.