The Commercial Monopoly in Sports Mega-Events
2.1 Introduction
These are challenging times for those who roam the corridors of power in the highest echelons of international sport, with some international sports federations (notably the two biggest players, the International Olympic Committee and FIFA) having experienced crises of governance and well-publicised allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the past decade or so. The Salt Lake City Olympic Games, of course, comes to mind. More recently we saw a widespread furore over bribes in the bidding for ‘Fair Play’-loving FIFA’s 2022 World Cup, which, after some FIFA officials were suspended clearly did not bother President Sepp Blatter too much. He subsequently responded to criticism of the organisation by saying that all FIFA’s ‘successes’ have created ‘a lot of envy and jealousy in our world because you cannot satisfy everybody’; ‘the success story of FIFA can continue because we are in a comfortable situation’ and ‘we have the power and the instruments to go against any attacks that are made’