Barcelona“There is always the moment of original sin. Moments when people do something corrupt and then it becomes endemic.” The sentence is said by the journalist looking at the camera The Guardian David Conn, to the Netflix documentary The secrets of FIFA. Not even two weeks ago it was released and presented, before pressing the play, a print from the past. Zurich, 2010. Joseph Blatter, then president of FIFA with an envelope in his hand. And five letters: Qatar.
The picture of the emirate’s choice is a photograph that speaks for itself. For the controversy of designating a country that does not respect the most elementary human rights. And also because of the suspicion that different investigations later confirmed: the bribes that had been paid to make it his headquarters. And Qatar as an engine of alarm: how did it get here?
Usually, when talking about original sin, two names are pointed out: Joao Havelange and Joseph Blatter. But there is another fundamental one. Without him, the trajectories of the other two are not understood. Nor where they arrived. It is the name of a man who understood how little the potential of football as a business is. That he cheated from a very young age with the regulations and that he had the fortune, in the most literal sense, of being the son of the founder of Adidas. We are talking about Horst Dassler.
The importance of a night in June 1974
The Englishman Stanley Rous aspired to revalidate the position of president of FIFA in the elections of 74. The organization had always been dominated by the English. But he had an unexpected competitor: the Brazilian Joao Havelange. Rous failed to detect that the victory was slipping away from him, but Dassler did. An ardent English supporter, he was aware the night before the vote that Havelange would win, and moved quickly to switch sides. They are a few hours of negotiations that are recounted in a Harvard case study signed by professors Jones, Norris and Kim. Dassler met with Havelange, who was aware that he had a problem because he had promised, among other things, to build soccer fields in poor countries even if FIFA did not have the money to do so.
This is where the first pact comes in. original sin Horst was committed to securing the funding. But Havelange, in return, had to help him with his businesses. Explain the book Sneaker Warsby Barbara Smit, that when the results were announced the next morning, Dassler was seen applauding.
The Adidas CEO was aware even then that the time had come to look further. It was not enough to sell clothes and sports products. And, investigating thoroughly, he ends up discovering an English company that had done something innovative: it had persuaded a cigarette manufacturer to sponsor a cricket competition. That same year, in 1974, Dassler asked to meet with the head of that company, Patrick Nally, who would explain some time later that he was taken to a private restaurant next to Adidas’ French headquarters. They gave him very good food. Very good wine. He literally said that he felt “flattered”. And they agreed to start working together.
And, again, sin. They created a headquarters in Monte Carlo that, in short, paid FIFA for the rights to sponsor and broadcast the World Cup and then resell them more expensively to companies around the world. A round business and detached from the respective companies they both had, with the aim that the funds went unnoticed.
And together they created a concept that is very well known today: football rights. “We wrote the marketing rules, the event rules, everything. And it was all new ideas”, Nally explained to al Financial Times. And yes, they changed the paradigm. Any drink, shaving cream or tobacco brand could pay to be the brand of a championship. And above all, Horst had a great vision when it came to spotting the huge impact that television would have when it came to broadcasting the matches. FIFA’s revenue soared. Horst increased wealth by simple resale. And Havelange filled his pockets with the envelopes he received from under the table, according to different witnesses in the cited Harvard study and in the same Netflix documentary.
From pockets to institutions
It has been said many times that corruption is like an octopus spreading its tentacles. Horst began placing people he trusted within the organization. One of them, Joseph Blatter. The Swiss had passed through Adidas’ headquarters in Landersheim, and Horst maneuvered—with Havelange—to place him as FIFA’s general secretary in 1981. “From the beginning, Horst Dasler and I felt that we were soul mates. He taught me the finer points of sports politics. It was quite a lesson for me”, said Blatter in his day. Some words that are collected in the book Sneaker Wars. But he adds two more. From two Adidas assistants. The first says that “they had discussions in which Horst clearly gave instructions to Blatter”. And the second affirms that directly “Horst spoke openly about Blatter as if he were a puppet”.
Pecat original
Horst Dasller died at 87. The man who was supposed to have almost unlimited power in the world of sports lost his life to cancer at the age of 51. The chronicles of that day highlighted, not only the accumulated fortune, but also the prestige. For example, being an honorary member of the Paris Sports Academy. Or the Olympic Order of the International Olympic Committee. Witnesses of people who worked with him report that he was a shy person, a weak speaker, but he knew how to display charm.
Maybe shyness kept him out of the headlines and the media spotlight. But without him the evolution of FIFA cannot be understood. Havelange is not understood, nor is Blatter. And you don’t understand the photograph from 2010. The envelope with the 5 letters where you could read: Qatar. He is the man who set the rules of the football business. And it paved the way for corruption. It is the man and the name of original sin.
