Fifa

This isn't so much a passport about what I have found out about Fifa. This is more about problems I am having finding things out about Fifa. A little while back I thought that I would use the FoI to be able to dig a little deeper into the world of international football.  With the amount of scandals that it has had, then surely it would mean that we could find something else on this matter.  

So I decided that I would start with Her Majesty’s Treasury and asked them:

Please can you tell me if anyone in your department has had any contact with any representative of FIFA (By email or by face to face meeting) since 01/01/2000 to time of writing.

Well, this caused a lot of back and forth questions about what I meant by that.  I simply wanted to know if they had any meetings.  Would be be the start of an investigation to know if they had made contact?  Well this was a bit more than I was expecting because it wasn't very clear.  In fact when I refined it  to:

from 01/01/2000 to 01/01/2011 until time of writing. Could I ask for the details of any agreement made on Fifa Tax payments made on the time frame stated above.

I still got nothing.  The reason is because it wasn't very clear again. Try again on another front…

So I decided that I would ask the Foreign and Commonwealth Office:

Please can you tell me if anyone in your department has had any contact (Email or face to face meeting) with anyone from FIFA between 01/01/2000 to time of writing.

And refined it to:

Please can you tell me if anyone in your department has had any contact (Email or face to face meeting) with anyone from FIFA. Specifically, can I ask for any meeting held about the Brazilian world cup between yourselves and the Brazilian government concerning the security of players\fans whilst in Brazil

Thinking that this was pretty clear by now, but no.  It turns out there was still far more on this topic that I could possibly think of.

So I asked the Gambling Commission:

Please can you tell me if you have done any investigations into gambling on any Fifa event since 01/01/2000

The answer came back that they did, sort of, investigate sports but that they would not be taking the action (Still information that is useful).  

The thing that I am getting to here is that I was anything that I didn't follow my own rules.  I didn't think about what I wanted and didn't think about how to ask it. I would still love to do something about Fifa, but until I can think about where to go on this, I am stuck.  The reasons for this post is because it is a way of me thinking about what I am doing and for me to have a think about where I am going.