Luis Figo - For Football

With the elections for FIFA President quickly approaching, Luis Figo released his manifesto entitled, 'For Football' in order to win over some last gasp votes. Pit against the current President, Sepp Blatter, as well as a Jordanian Prince, Figo's manifesto could win over potential voters, with his unique ideas.

When I first opened his manifesto, I noticed the title #ForFootball. Seeing that hashtag made me die a little inside. Now I'm no politician or political enthusiast, but I'm pretty sure hashtags aren't supposed to be contained inside serious document, (some of those who have read it may think that it is anything but serious.) Yes it gets people involved on social media and I admire his effort for doing this, but there's a time and a place Luis, a time and a place.

With that minor hiccup out of the way, his presentation is eye catching, slick and easy to use. There is an emotive sound bite to the right of a big serious bust of the man himself with a look of "I'm going to hunt you down if you don't vote for me" on his face. We get a detailed version of an impressive CV and also tells us his marital status. What this has got to do with running for President, I have no idea. In short, it's a nice looking PDF file, that doesn't beat about the bush and gets straight to the point. I like it.

#1. Change and Development.

Figo's main priority is to develop football throughout the world by increasing participation of all ages and genders in grassroots football. Aiming for at least a 10% growth in 4 years is ambitious, and if the model of the current FIFA continues, I scream 'no hope' in his face. With football easily being the most popular sport in the world, I think he means getting more people playing at a higher level. So far so good. In addition to this he wants to improve the infrastructure of football by dishing out equipment across the globe. He believes that at least 50% of the solidarity funds given to the Member Associations should be used to dish out kit and equipment. Let's hope the FA take note.

#2. Change and Solidarity.

Figo outlines his objective of distributing 50% of FIFA's revenues, $2.5b, to the Member Associations over a period of 4 years. A part of this also details giving a larger some to nations with the most need, whether that goes on lifestyle or not, I'm not too sure. It seems a solid proposal as with the amount of money other nations could become more competitive and in turn making international competitions more exciting. This is all well and good, but will the Member Associations spend this money correctly, rather than squandering it away? I hope he will dish out instructions as to what the money should be spent on. The most shocking thing about the next point is that FIFA have $1.5b in reserves. As Figo correctly states, there is no need for a sum this large and he will spread it among several projects that he will be running. I don't think anyone can argue with this proposal.

#3. Change and the World Cup

This is perhaps where things start to go downhill, depending on your opinion. It seems like he wants to increase the number of teams to 40 with the addition of several extra days to accommodate this increase. I have no real problem with this, after all it'll give Northern Ireland and extra chance of qualifying. Others will say that the competition will 'lose it's gloss' and I can see where they are coming from. His second proposal includes two 24 team competitions played on 2 continents with a final knock-out stage taking place in one country. Looking at the positives, it will split the amount of money required to fund the competition in three ways while giving several countries the 'World Cup experience.' Negatively, I don't like the weighting against the European nations for the additional teams for obvious reasons, and I think it would ruin involvement for nations when the matches are split over a larger area. I'm all in favour of the first proposal, but not so keen on the second. 

#4. Change and the Laws of the Game

It's great to see that Luis Figo is all in favour of goal line technology as our game needs to move with the advancing times. He also wants to abolish 'triple punishments' as well as testing the 'sin bin' disciplinary policy and reverting to the old offside rule. On triple punishments, this is probably a good idea, as many games are over as a contest once a player ends up in the dressing rooms. However, will this not just lead to more penalties? I covered this in an article around this time last year when Wojciech Sczezcsny was sent off against Bayern Munich. I'd like to see the sin bin option given a trial run as it would certainly cut down on the amount of cards dished out during the game. However the rule book will also have to be changed as bookings will not be able to be used for every single minor offence. Also, the 'football purists' will see this as a copy of rugby and may not be appealed by this proposal. There is certainly potential in some of these ideas.

Those are my opinions on the majority of Figo's proposals noted in his manifesto. The full compliment can be found at http://forfootball.org/. The former Portuguese international certainly looks good on paper, but I'm sure most of these proposals are easier said than done. With the elections on May 29th, I somehow suspect that Blatter won't be in for a fifth term. As always I'd like to hear your opinions on the topic at hand, and whether Luis Figo would excel as FIFA President.