Chris Rattue: Fifa uses power for good of global game

Fifa President Sepp Blatter. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Fifa can appear to be on the wrong track as we know from the Qatar World Cup hosting controversy, but long may it reign over football if that is what is necessary to produce the amazing contests we are seeing from Brazil. The 2014 World Cup has had a superb, goal-laden start, including the extraordinary dismantling of champions Spain by the gifted Dutch, a small country with a big influence on the game.

The world game needs a powerful body to protect it from the rise of club football and associated self-interested forces. For all of its sins, Sepp Blatter's organisation does still run the only global game for the general good and puts on a highly credible world tournament, with the deserving teams and their best players present.

Just look at the disgusting mess that is cricket, whose credibility is wrecked partly because a weak ICC is powerless against the money flowing around and out of India. The ICC can't even standardise the test playing rules.

Even rugby, a minor sport compared with football, has trouble ensuring smaller nations can prise all players from clubs for the World Cup, and those same countries have been hit with rigged draws when they get there. How corrupt is that?

Fifa needs to clean up its act in a number of areas, including a reconsideration of the tough terms it imposes before granting World Cup hosting rights.

If the house needs cleaning on the corruption front, it must get sweeping.

But Fifa cops too much criticism at times - the skill in which it runs such a huge game is taken for granted. One of Fifa's strengths is that it sticks to a fair World Cup qualification system, one that penalises many good footballing countries, especially in Europe.

There have also long been rumours about the formation of a European Super League, where the big clubs would band together and quit both Fifa and Uefa and take the game's best players with them.

It's a danger that will not go away and football needs a powerful world body to help counter that threat and keep a fair balance between club and country, a difficult task.

Fifa's much-criticised obsession with accumulating vast resources gives it the power to keep the game together by keeping its constituents happy.

Blatter's almost insurmountable position at the head of Fifa is an indication of the effectiveness of this.

The other hero of the hour is the English Premier League whose evolution under a big broadcasting contract has resulted in an almost perfect combination of the traditional energetic, direct English playing style with the more intricate skill of imported players.

The 2014 World Cup reflects a thrilling approach to the game that the influential EPL promotes.

The EPL is not perfect. Some of the money behind clubs comes from dubious places, the players' wages can be seen as obscene and the ticket prices hiked accordingly. Then again, those high wages keep the players and their agents happy, and away from the temptations of a breakaway league. That also helps protect the World Cup's credibility and future.

Any tournament that doesn't involve a vuvuzela, those horrid plastic trumpets which blighted the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, has a head start. But Brazil is shaping as the best tournament ever, with so many teams capable of challenging in the final stages with a skilful style.

As the World Cup took brilliant shape over the weekend, any scepticism about Fifa gave way to a feeling that the world football body actually does a difficult job well. As for Blatter, cricket would kill for such a strong leader, rest assured of that.