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Boycott Possibility

Jefferson ChaseNovember 22, 2014

Rarely has a football functionary been so frank. The managing director of the German Football League (DFL) says Germany and other big footballing countries should consider showing the World Cup the cold shoulder.

https://p.dw.com/p/1Drhi
Christian Seifert
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Norbert Schmidt

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, DFL managing director Christian Seifert said that Germany should remain open to the idea of boycotting the next two World Cups amidst allegations of corruption in the awarding of the event to hosts Russia and Qatar.

Seifert minced no words about football's world governing body FIFA.

"You no longer know whether you should feel shocked or embarrassed for them," Seifert said. "As a serious organization, you don't feel represented by FIFA. You just don't feel a part of it."

The DFL represents the interests of the Bundesliga's 36 first- and second-division clubs. Seifert said that the big European footballing associations - the FAs of England, Spain, Germany and Italy - could force FIFA's hand if they joined together in a boycott.

"75 percent of the players at a World Cup are under contract in Europe," Seifert told the newspaper. "If Europe says 'we're no longer playing along with it,' then it would change everything…Then there would be no World Cup."

Seifert's interview comes after the former head of the German Football Association, Theo Zwanziger, applied to FIFA to release special Investigator Michael J. Garcia from his pledge of confidentiality.

Earlier a German judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, the chairman of FIFA's investigative committee, declared that according to Garcia's report there was no corruption involved in the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and and the 2022 event to Qatar. Garcia then protested that Eckert's summary of his report was "incomplete and erroneous." Numerous FIFA critics have called for the report to be released in its entirety.