Can The FA Afford to Break Away From FIFA?

Blatter Has Another Term

Sepp Blatter has successfully retained his position as The President of FIFA, after an effective no-contest. Football’s governing body has been the subject of much attention in the past week or so, but rather than focussing on all the controversy that has taken place, I thought I’d have a look at the possible alternative for The Football Association – breaking away from FIFA.

The FA Chairman David Bernstein, spearheaded the appeal to delay the FIFA Presidential election, but the stance of The FA was not very well received by the ‘football family’. Only 16 other nations agreed with The FA, while 19 other countries abstained from the voting. This left 172 countries willing to let Blatter rule over football for another 4 years.

The appeal from The FA to get the election postponed was viewed upon by most as a case of sour grapes. England have, rightly or wrongly, had their gripes with Mr. Blatter and FIFA over the past 12 months or so. Blatter’s unwillingness to allow goal-line technology in the past, played a part in England’s World Cup exit at the hands of Germany. And England’s 2018 World Cup bid failed dramatically back in December.

David Bernstein Had Little Support

Blatter has announced that he has no problem with The FA, despite their attempts at delaying the election process, but it would seem from the outside that The FA may have lost the few friends they had in World Football.

There’s been very speculative rumours that The FA may attempt to break away from FIFA, and therefore forfeit all FIFA related competitions. This would mean no World Cup tournaments for England. It would also lead to there being no European spots for any English teams – something that provides a massive amount of income to the clubs involved.

There is of course, the suggestion that there are other national associations who are not happy with FIFA and how it is run. It could be possible – for example – that the other 16 nations who agreed with The FA in the election vote, could also leave FIFA and set up a new association together.

It is unlikely that this would be a success though, the only other national association to come out publicly and agree with The FA, is The Scottish Football Association (The SFA). There is nothing to suggest, that a new competition set up by the potential breakaway associations would be as popular as The Champions League. There is also no guarantee that any TV Broadcaster would want to risk the wrath of FIFA by purchasing broadcast rights to this new competition.

The Economy Would Suffer Without
A World Cup

Such is the size of The Premier League, that domestic football probably wouldn’t be affected too much if The FA were to remove any FIFA affiliation. But there would be a big hole in the bank accounts of some teams who are no longer benefiting from the jackpot that is Champions League qualification.

As mentioned above, the biggest impact for English football as a whole should The FA ever cut its ties with FIFA, is the lack of a World Cup every four years. 


World Cup fever grips the country; it has a massive affect on the economy, with the 2006 World Cup leading to Retail Sales of over £1 Billion. Added to this, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that 20% of people watch the World Cup in a pub – whilst the pubs themselves expected that 21 Million pints would be drunk across the country during England games alone.

Could This Be The Only
Time England Win?

The lack of a World Cup with England competing would have a huge affect on the economy of our country. 


Without the opportunity for English players to test themselves on the biggest stage of all, it would surely be a detriment to the future of the game, and may eventually affect the global stranglehold that the Premier League currently has on world football.

The events of the past few weeks have pushed The FA into the corner of the ‘Football Family’ room. But there isn’t really much of an option for The FA, other than to attempt to grin and bear it.


As long as Sepp Blatter sticks to his election promise of ‘four more years’, then someone at The FA has the opportunity to build what could be classed as a four year election campaign.

It’s clear to see that the reform necessary for the beautiful game won’t happen during Blatter’s reign. FIFA needs somebody at the top who is willing to make some big changes, not only to the game, but also to how FIFA governs it.