“Define for me a crisis and I will tell you if there is a crisis”
I’m not much of a football fan, but I know a lot of people who are. I am however very interested in the way that businesses are run, and in issues such as leadership. With this in mind I watched the FIFA press conference on 30 May. What great lessons it offered, all of them in how not to do things, as a business trying to manage your current negative PR.
Rambling, aggressive, dillusional, opaque, confrontational.
At one point Mr Blatter spoke of values, the values of FIFA and of football. Nice words they were too, but as smart business leaders know, people judge actions not words. In the case of Mr Blatter and FIFA there is simply a lack of alignment, and as we can all see, when the words and actions don’t match up, credibility, integrity and intent all disappear. And as was also know, when they are gone, so is trust.
There is a distinct sense of “snouts in troughs “and personal vested interests underlying all of this.
Crisis, what crisis? A crisis of a complete loss of trust in Mr Blatter and the self serving business that is FIFA I would suggest.
Can it change? Of course, no system is that stable, especially one built on so much ego, self interest and comfortable self satisfaction. It will need something significant to happen, such as sponsors turning off the cash tap. But I suspect the empire of this “family” will soon be crumbling.
