Legal Leadership – Can Injury Lawyers Inspire Others?

Lessons in Leadership – Flash, Bang, Wallop goes Kodak

Last week brought the sad news of the collapse of Kodak as it fails to keep up with the times. The company which pioneered photography bringing us the very first pictures from the moon and making photography into both an industry and a past-time for millions of people worldwide, filed for bankruptcy protection.

Founded in 1880 by inventor George Eastman, the company led the birth of amateur photography focusing on portability and affordability, producing the Kodak Box Brownie Camera in 1900 selling for only $1, using film costing 15 cents.  George Eastman (1854-1932) was one of the world first entrepreneurs who began his ‘career’ having dropped out of school in New York at the age of 14 following the death of his father. For 10 years he worked as an office clerk until a defining moment took place in his life. At the age of 24 he decided to plan a ‘once in a lifetime’ holiday to Dominican Republic and save up to buy a camera to record the adventure. When he got it, it was as big as a microwave and required a heavy tripod, plus a tent to spread the pictures on glass plates before exposing them. With chemicals, glass tanks, a heavy plate folder and water canister, Eastman described the kit as a ‘pack horse load’. He never made it on holiday. Instead he grew obsessed with the idea of making photography simpler.

The Kodak Box Brownie was a huge success and the company grew under Eastman’s visionary leadership. In 1929, Eastman worked with Thomas Edison to invent the first motion picture film, leading the way into sound motion pictures, where Kodak still lead the way today, with 80 movies that have won Best Picture Oscars having been shot on Kodak film. Eastman also developed a high performance; high value culture within Kodak, paying out results based rewards to staff. He became one of the US’s biggest philanthropists, giving away more than $100 million to charities, universities and medical clinics. Sadly, on 14^th March 1932, after two years of suffering from a degenerative spinal disorder, Eastman committed suicide with a single gunshot to the heart. He left a note which read: “To my friends, my work is done. Why wait?”

Since then, however, successive CEO’s kept alive Eastman’s vision, innovating and progressing cutting edge photography solutions in order to make photography accessible and pleasurable to everyone. In 1963, the company launched the Kodak Instamatic Camera featuring cartridge loaded film that recorded, developed and printed images from a slot in the front of the camera, capturing people’s memories in an instant. Kodak became a household name globally with over 50 million Instamatic Cameras sold within 4 years, earning the rightful place of market leader.  By 1981 sales surpassed the $10 Billion mark.

The lesson for all entrepreneurs and business leaders:

The company wanted to remain at the forefront of advancements in camera technology and in 1975, at the same time Steve Jobs invented the first Apple (Apple II) Kodak invented the world’s first digital camera. However, bosses shelved the project as they saw it as a threat to the film making business.

Kodak’s success then became its biggest burden. Fear started to creep in. Fear of failure and in particular fear of letting go of the company’s core product and acknowledging that the ‘cash cow’ was fast becoming the ‘old dog’. In other words the company spent the last 2 decades failing to keep up with the digital revolution that has killed off Kodak’s main market of film based photography. Its demise under the leadership of Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez is sure to become a text book case for future business students, of a company which could not keep up with the times. Having led the market, the board of directors became immersed in a fear of the new digital advancement, hanging on to and protecting ‘the old ways’; and forgetting its original journey to success was led by innovation, vision and heavy investment in Research and Development and marketing.  Instead they spent far too much time watching the market like a hawk and the moment companies like Samsung, Fujifilm and Apple launched new products Kodak filed law suit after law suit over patent infringements. Successive management teams failed to deal with the growing crisis of being in a dramatically shifting marketplace. Where one-time rival Fujifilm moved into LCD screen technology and even adapting its chemicals for the pharmaceuticals industry, Kodak continued to keep film at the heart of its business in the mistaken belief that it should continue to base itself around its business heritage.

During my career I spent four years in the debt recovery division of a major financial services institution. In my experience, businesses fail for two main reasons – poor leadership and/or poor sales systems. In this case, the cause of the failure of one of the world’s greatest companies must be placed squarely at the door of poor leadership. The following two areas should be considered:

Autocratic leadership: It is never really a good sign that the Chairman and CEO is one and the same person. This smacks of hierarchical, self-indulgent and autocratic leadership. This can create a culture where the talent within the organisation is no longer listened to and ultimately the best people leave, leaving behind a tired and old fashioned board of directors who fail make well informed decisions.

Collaboration: Where companies fail to collaborate, they risk being excluded from developments in the marketplace and kept at arm’s length by their competitors. There’s a great saying by Sun-tzu the Chinese military strategist (circa 400 BC), that is so true in the world of today’s global economy. ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’.  Kodak became so fiercely protective of its patents that it completely took the eye off the ball that the world was moving on at such a pace.

My hope is that every CEO and leader is a position of responsibility will have the foresight, vision and courage to question the strategy they have for their company. Have you or your organisation become a little ‘stuck in your ways’? When was the last time you gathered your teams together and really listened to their views on the direction of the business? How close are you to your competitors? Do you know what they are up to? What is your ‘Hedgehog’?.

If you would like help asking some really challenging questions and leading your company to win and maintain a market leading position in 2012, contact me and I will happily help you to avoid the mistakes that Kodak have made.

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Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson

 

What is good leadership?

 

Based on more than forty interviews with the late Steve Jobs, conducted over two years, as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors and colleagues, this book chronicles the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and a ferocious drive revolutionised six industries: personal computers; animated movies; music; phones; tablet computing and digital publishing.

At a time when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where heaps of imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

He could drive those people around him to fury and despair, but his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be. As a leader he was charismatic and energetic, pushing people beyond the limits of what they believed they could accomplish and producing remarkable work as a result.

To save you hours reading the book – all 630 pages – here is a fantastic video outlining the full story and giving you useful ‘golden nuggets’ to help you improve your entrepreneurial leadership skills.

 

 The Steve Jobs Story Video – click to watch via Readitforme

 

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How To Be A Leader

 

To answer the question how can I become a leader, it’s important for us to begin with an understanding of what makes a leader, and indeed what makes a great leader?

I recently met Dr Stephen Covey, world renowned expert on personal development and author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  His definition of leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.

Some of you have asked whether leadership is a choice not a position.

Because of the definition of leadership, the ability to become such a leader is a choice that any person can make; any parent or grandparent, any teacher, any coach, any co-worker, and friend. When Dr Covey speaks throughout the world, he often asks audiences:

“How many of you had someone in your life that communicated your worth and potential so clearly that it profoundly influenced your life?”

Inevitably over half the people raise their hands. He walks around the room and asks them to share their experience with how it happened, who did it, the impact that it had upon them, and if they, too, are making the choice to do the same with other people. People often become very emotional when they talk about the parent, the coach, the teacher, the formal leader, the friend, the neighbour, or the relative who really became very close to them and communicated to them their worth and potential. This is always an inspiring experience.

So, is there a formula for becoming such a leader?

From all my research I believe there is such a formula. They are what I will list as the five imperatives of leadership.

In order to fully understand how to be a leader, you must first make time to train yourself in both the art and science of leadership. There are fundamental principles upon which you can develop leadership skills, but you need to know what they are and how to employ them to best effect. The world (and the people within it) is also constantly changing, so it’s important to stay up to date with leadership innovation in order to adapt. Self-development is the key to learning how to be a leader and unlocking the potential within you. This is the cornerstone to your future success.

Action: Bookmark Leadership-Expert.co.uk now, subscribe and place a recurring appointment in your diary to allow just half an hour per week to read, learn and apply all the great tips, techniques and tools I will give you.

The second is to inspire trust. You build relationships of trust through both your character and competence and you also extend trust to others. You show others that you believe in their capacity to live up to certain expectations, to deliver on promises, and to achieve clarity on key goals. You don’t inspire trust by micromanaging and second guessing every step people make.

Action: Ask yourself is ‘trust’ one of your core values? If so, consider who in your team you need to be more trusting of. Find out what motivates them. What can you trust them with by delegating or giving them greater responsibility?

The third is to clarify purpose. Great leaders involve their people in the communication process to create the goals to be achieved. If people are involved in the process, they psychologically own it and you create a situation where people are on the same page about what is really important—mission, vision, values, and goals.

Action: Ask yourself “More often than not, do I communicate at my team, rather than engage with them?” Think about how you like to be involved and consider how you can engender that ethos in all your dealings with your team. Do you hold regular ‘short’ team meetings focusing on involving your team in setting parameters and guidelines to bring to life ‘mission, vision, values and goals’? Many teams I’ve met don’t even know what these are.

The forth is to align systems. This means that you don’t allow there to be conflict between what you say is important and what you measure. For instance, many times organisations claim that people are important but in fact the structures and systems, including accounting, make them an expense or cost centre rather than an asset and the most significant resource.

Action: Consider what systems you and the organisation has in place to recognise and reward people’s efforts. Create a simple reward system. For example, the CEO of a company I recently coached, decided to rule out just half an hour every Friday afternoon to phone 3 people in the company who turned in a great weeks performance, or where he had been ‘tipped off’ that they had gone the extra mile for a client/the company. Word soon got round, productivity went up and he eventually found himself phoning up to 10 people every Friday afternoon, because what he had inadvertently created was the beginnings of a high performance, high value culture.

The fifth is the fruit of the other three—unleashed talent. When you inspire trust and share a common purpose with aligned systems, you empower people. Their talent is unleashed so that their capacity, their intelligence, their creativity, and their resourcefulness is utilized.

I would add that these are based upon principles that build upon each other rather than techniques or steps that have to be taken independent of each other. These aren’t “management tricks” but real principles that guide a true leaders character.

Action: Consider what you can do differently from today to unleash the talent of your team.

The world is vastly different today and ever-changing. If we can develop leaders who can withstand and embrace the changing times by deeply rooting themselves in these principles of great leadership, then we can develop great people, great teams and great results.

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Leadership vs Management – Analysis

The Role Of Management Through The Century

The traditional role of a manager is primarily to ‘control’ their subordinates.  The success of a managed project depends upon several factors listed below:

• Motivation of staff
• Resources (financial and non-financial) allocated to the task
• Expertise and competence of the staff
• Productivity and efficiency
• Soundness of project plan
• Uncontrollable external factors

Highlighted in bold are those factors that most managers are charged with control over. Often budgeting and strategic planning for an operation is completed at a higher level of management, and thus isn’t always a controllable factor.

In the Fordism era, managers were charged with maximising efficiency of the large staff numbers in manufacturing plants, and the Ford management style was created. Under this theory, staff were given a minimum number of separate tasks and were shown precisely how to do each job so they became an expert in a tiny area. This encouraged operational efficiency, and was used alongside financial incentives to motivate employees to work.

As times have changed, Fordism now appears out-dated. Management experts in the modern day recommend soft (difficult-to-measure) goals alongside the obvious desire to maximise profits. Such ‘soft’ goals could include the following:

• High employee retention rates
• Increased employee participation
• Fundraising for charities
• Reducing the environmental impact of business activities
• Focusing on training top quality individuals

Such goals cannot be achieved with the same old fashioned management styles that dominated factories in the 1920′s, and hence several new theories have been put forward that now better reflect the way society expects managers to behave.

The Role Of Leadership Through The Century

While the role of managers has undoubtedly been made far more complex throughout the last century, the role of the business leader has stayed remarkably similar. This is in part due to the fact that while businesses have been intensely competing for low-level staff as unemployment has hit all-time lows during the 1900′s, demand for top level jobs has remained unsurprisingly solid. This has meant that while businesses have had to adapt and offer a more attractive work environment for new employees, the treatment of business leaders and senior management has hardly changed at all. Boardrooms have always been tense places.

The role of a leader is to create the top level organisational strategies and coordinate senior management in their efforts to implement the companies long term plan. As a figurehead, leaders also are required to liaise with the press and employees alike – promoting their company to both their customers and workers.

Leadership Vs Management

The leadership management comparison can be split into several areas of difference.

1. Leadership Style

Leaders use a transformational or democratic leadership style. This involves inspiring and empowering collegues, whereas managers tend to lean towards an autocratic managing style which allows them to retain most of the authority and decision making power in a business unit. In short, a leader allows people to make effective decisions, and managers attempt to make them.

2. Time focus

While it can be observed that especially among Fortune 500 companies, a CEO has a shorter expected lifespan than general manager at company, leaders still embrace a more long term time horizon. In comparison, managers are given tight targets to meet each quarter which causes them to live in a short term perspective. This can be detrimental to organisational goals but is deemed to carry more benefits than drawbacks in the current economic climate.

3. Nature of relationship with colleagues

It is said that managers have subordinates, while leaders have followers. What this displays is that people who obey managers act like unwilling tools at their disposal, whereas followers of leaders are willing and intrinsically motivated.

4. Risk Adversity

Leaders; especially entrepreneurial leaders, enjoy risk. Risk brings rewards if approached in a successful way. However for a manager, the upsides of accepting risk are minimal. A flat salary or limited bonus package ensures that managers will be more worried about losing their job or respect, than they would appreciate the limited benefits of succeeding. A manager certainly wishes for a more comfortable job than an true leader.

 

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Leadership Training

Welcome to Leadership Expert’s page on Leadership Training.

What is leadership training about? Is leadership training effective? These will be the questions I will be investigating, evaluating and more importantly – solving.

The industry for training indviduals in business or on a personal level to develop their leadership. Training is a rather clinical word, and leadership is a very hard to define subject. Do the two really mix well?

Well, leadership coaches are commonplace in society and are generally being accepted in organisations and as part of peoples schedules.  The leadership training that these coaches offer generally falls into two catergories. Either they’re the masters of oratory that give inspiring speeches and are great for temporarily enthusing staff – or they’re the type that focus on processes and attitudes in the workplace, and suggest practical and effective tweaks to behaviours to help improve leadership in the company.

From visiting organisations, I’ve found that the happiest employees and managers regularly invest in themselves and their personal leadership training. People have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, but I’m pleased to recommend one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself: The 11 Forgotten Laws. It’s generally seen as an essential and core ‘crash course’ in the laws and secrets you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life. Its an excellent base upon which you can build your personal development.

How Should Leaders Respond to Litigation?

The occurrence of an accident in the work place is something that can send managers into a panic. 50 years ago, the concern would have been solely for the health and well-being of the employee. Whilst it would be wrong to infer that managers of today are cold or disconnected – I’m sure they would all agree that they would also feel concern for the impact on the finances of the company – through litigation.

For better or for worse, the rise of valid claim for personal injury in the UK is slowly changing the attitudes of leaders. Previously, health and safety was a term only used in very dangerous work places such as mines, oil rigs, fishing ships, logging yards and nuclear plants. Now, even the tamest of suburban office spaces will have a comprehensive ‘HSE’ plan implemented by a responsible individual.

Some may scoff at such procedure, but I actually see it as laudable activity. Nobody can argue that having first aid kits and trained personnel on site is going to have a negative effect on employee health, so I view it as a step in the right direction.

Many do not share my view, and see the regulations as ‘red tape’. Indeed, the regulations force many businesses, small or large, to incur training and wage costs that they otherwise wouldn’t have. There is however an interesting point to be made; that the more a company spends on H&S, the less they will expect to spend on litigation claims brought by employees. Law firm Moore Blatch predicts that workplace injuries will rise due to the Health & Safety executive announcing they will be reducing the number of inspections to employers.

I guess it will always be difficult to draw the line between lives saved, and costs saved.

Leaders have had little choice but adopt the regulations imposed by legislation, so the end product doesn’t necessarily reflect the enthusiasm of the tone at the top. Never the less, it is easy to spot when management are fully behind the HSE initiative.

As a manager or leader, or simply as an employee, leave a comment below to tell us whether you support Health & Safety initiatives being implemented in your workplace. If you’re from outside the UK, why don’t you share the current situation on HSE in your country and whether you approve of it.

 

 

Leadership Traits

Leadership traits are the characteristics that leaders possess that enable them to lead effectively. I’m going to run down 20 of the traits I believe are most important, it’ll be interesting to see how many you feel you already have, and which ones you’re still working on. Leave a comment below to let me know.

The Top Leadership Traits

20. Patience – A good leader needs to show their employees that they’re willing to give them as much time as necessary to see them perform. A manager who roughly attaches arbitary deadlines onto tasks and aggressively chases employees up will only antognise and stress their workforce. Good leadership management is about waiting as well as acting.

19. Continuous Development – Smart people have always sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. Most these days tend to be rather disappointing, but one brilliant idea that has recently captured my attention is The Ultimate Leadership Guide which contains all the core teachings of 30 top leadership books,  which is simply an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your career and even find happiness in other areas of your life!

18. Graft – A brilliant leadership trait is the trait of grafting. There’s a simple rule that most good leaders follow – always do the nastiest job yourself. While being able to delegate dire tasks to others is one of the perks of management, t is important that employees never actually question your dedication to work hard. By simply doing the famously nasty job yourself each year, your staff will never have a doubt over whether it’s fair you have the ability to delegate menial work.

17. Fairness/Equity - Fairness is one of the key criteria by which employees measure their superiors. Quite simply, if you don’t behave in an equitable manner at all times, you will lead no more than a rabble of reluctant workers, and will never gain their respect. Fairness is one of Herzberg’s ‘hygeine’ factors from his popular leadership theory. This means that if you are fair, employees will not be inherently motivated, but merely content. If however you act unfairly and break the rules, employees will be demotivated. Very little upside if you possess this trait but large potential negative effects on motivation if you lack it. Its a tough world, but the message is clear.

16. Modesty - An important note to remember is that in every team you lead, some will be envious of your job or position. These people are also often the most active, amibitious and productive members of the group, so it’s extremely important that you keep them onside. By being modest and humble, you minimise the potential for jealousy within the team, and inspire warmth and affection instead.

15. Appreciates Quality - Simple put, a good leader recognises that quality is the most important gauge of the work done. Always. A culture that cares little for quality will demotivate employees and reduce job satisfaction. Staff must be able to feel good about their work and their skills.

14. Sense of Humour - A practical reality for most leaders is that you’ll spend an awful lot of time in meetings or speaking in public. A good sense of humour helps to put across the message you want to convey more effectively and help smooth over awkward or tense moments in board meetings etc.

13. Wide Outlook – A good leadership trait is to be able to take a step back and take a look at the big picture. This is really one the main purpose of a leader, but so many managers instead choose to get bogged down in small decisions that should really be taken care of by someone else. While everyone is cleaning the deck and preparing the sails, somebody has to be looking where the ship is going.

12. Adaptability and Flexibility - A clear fact in life is that many things you enjoy will change, and many things you despise will quickly improve. As a leader, you must be able to cope with negative change, and also be able to quickly grab opportunities as soon as they appear. Less hesitation, and more asking the question “Ok, so how can I make the best of this situation”.

11. Human Understanding – A leader that can understand their employees and really be able to emphasis with the workforce or team as a whole will ultimately be a far more effective leader. Only by being able to put yourself in the shoes of your employees will you be able to make decisions that will enthuse and motivate your staff.

10. Clarity - Job roles and positions within companies can sometimes be at best – a complete mess. Business leadership is about separately and clearly identifying those roles and responsibilities and ensure that everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing.

9. Charisma – The skill of oratory has been perfectly demonstrated recently by Barrack Obama’s surge in popularity en route to the white house, and his continued popularity now that he has gained office. The ability to speak confidently and with meaning is a rare one, and carries much merit for those few who posess it. Increased influence and persuasion is just one of the positive benefits of being a leader with charisma.

8. Ability to Delegate – As I mentioned earlier, delegation is one of the perks of being promoted to a leadership position. Why is it then that so many leaders fail to delegate enough? Why do they continue to ‘meddle’ in small, trivial matters, and refuse to give subordinates the real responsibility and confidence to be able to make their own decisions? The answer is because it’s alot harder than you’d think to be able to properly delegate control to someone else. Especially the control over a job you’ve been doing yourself for many years. By undermining your subordinate’s ability to make decisions independently, you’re being a poor leader. That’s why the ability to delegate is one of my top 20 traits.

7. Calmness – Calmness is a leadership trait that again we could do with learning from President Obama. One of the most common pieces of praise I hear from President Obama is how he has stayed so calm under pressure. With the recession, middle east conflict and recent fiascos such as Swine Flu, Piracy and torture memos – it has sincerely impressed many that this man has been able to keep his composure and present a solid front. Any leader that can achieve this will instantly earn respect.

6. Ability to Listen – The fantastic leaders thorough history were also good listeners. Drawing upon the expertise and ideas of all those around you will improve your decision making. It follows that leaders who listen well simply make better decisions.

5. Confidence – Confidence flows through a team just like cheerfulness or a hardworking attitude. If the leader shows hesistation, self-doubt, or a lack of amibition, it will infect the rest of the team. Enthusiastically following an unconfident will really test employees attitude, and this is something you don’t want to be doing. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to enthusiastically follow your lead.

4. Consistency – This is a similar point to fairness. If you fail to be consistent with your attitude, decisions or behaviour, you will be causing unrest in your team.

3. Approachability & Friendliness – While many managers dream of being a superior and ‘feared’ leader, the most effective type of leader is an approachable one. A leader who an any employee can feel like they could have a conversation with will be able to hear about what the quiet dissenters have to say, or what the ‘real’ results of their latest intiative was.

2. Passion and Motivation – It goes without saying that a leadership trait that will be admired is your passion for what you do. Whatever your role, people will respect the fact that you take pride in your work, you enjoy it, and that you will therefore try your hardest to succeed. Passion and motivation will always trump formal leadership training or leadership coaching.

1. Trustworthiness - Ethics and trust has to come right at the top of the most important leadership traits for one simple reason. Nobody will obey, follow, or be inspired by someone they distrust. A good reputation, likeability and respect will be absolutely impossible if you’re labelled as a liar. Regardless of their own mal-practises, people will never be able to associate with an untrustworthy character.

Show Leadership in Business

Whether you use leadership to help you in your day to day life or in your business, there are many different types of leadership and they can help you in different scenarios.

Today I thought I’d focus on how leadership can help you if you’re a small business owner.

Always know the competition

If you own a small business in a competitive market, then you should always know what your competition is up to. If you know what your competition is up to then you can plan and act accordingly.

For example, if you find out that your competition has just launched a special offer on their products, you can react and launch a special offer of your own.

Lead by being social

Social has become a massive part of what every business does and social has opened doors to a massive opportunity for businesses to engage with their customers, in a way that wasn’t previously possible.

When you speak to your customers via any social media platforms, you should always try to engage in conversation with them. If you simply just pitch products they’ll treat it more like spam, even if you are trying to help.

You can also follow the competition via the social networks so see how they are engaging, more and more businesses are starting to do this so make sure you take advantage.

One important thing to remember about using social networks is that the majority are completely free to use, so instead of paying for ads you could try to make better use of your money by investing some time in social.

Lead with your finances

Running a small business can be extremely difficult and your finances should always be second nature to you, but for some people that’s not always the case.

People get confused when they look at accounts and detailed spreadsheets but unless you can afford an accountant then you’ll have to educate yourself.

Overspending on products or not paying a supplier because of logistical error can seriously harm business relationships that can be vitally important to businesses survival.

If you do struggle with working out or understanding financial aspects of your business, you should ask someone you know with experience, and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. Leaders know when to lead but they also know when to take a backwards step in order to improve.

Lead by example

If you have a small business you should always lead as you want your employees to follow.  If you set a good example to follow it will instil confidence in your employees and they will be happy to follow you.

On the other hand if you set a bad example for your employees and they don’t agree with what you do, it can cause some serious problems. As a result, your employees may become despondent and as we all know, unmotivated employees don’t work as hard as they would if they were happy.

This article was written by Andreas Nicolaides from moneysupermarket.com.

When Corruption is King

Over the last 12 months FIFA, football’s governing body, has come under intense scrutiny following allegations of corruption against some of it’s highest profile members, including the president and the leaders of two of it’s confederations.

The three names that cropped up time and again during this period were those of Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, Jack Warner, Blatter’s former vice president at FIFA and Mohammed bin Hamman, the former president of the Asian Football Conferderation.

Earlier this year, both Warner and bin Hamman were suspended from their positions at FIFA whilst an investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption were carried out by FIFA’s ethics committee.

The investigations into Warner’s conduct were eventually dropped after he agreed to resign from his post and he was effectively absolved of any wrong-doing as the ethics committee concluded that: “As a consequence of Mr Warner’s self-determined resignation, all ethics committee procedures against him have been closed and the presumption of innocence is maintained.”

Mohammed bin Hamman, on the other hand, was not given the chance to resign with his reputation intact and he was subsequently banned for life from all football activities after the ethics committee found that his actions violated FIFA rules.

However, Sepp Blatter felt no recriminations as the allegations that he knew of culture of bribery within his organisation but failed to do anything about it were never investigated due to a lack of supporting evidence.

Furthermore, Mohammed bin Hamman’s withdrawal from the presidential race and the resignation of Jack Warner meant that Blatter ran unopposed for a fourth term as FIFA president.

This left a sour taste in the mouths of many in the football world, most notably the English FA who felt that their bid had been unfairly dismissed on Blatter’s behest due to the fact that the BBC aired a programme on the alleged corruption within FIFA just days before the final votes were cast.

This, coupled with the fact that Qatar, a country with no current footballing infrastructure but with money to burn (literally, as it is oil rich), led to many questioning FIFA’s World Cup bidding and voting process, which, in turn led to the investigations into the allegations of corruption.

The following weeks and months saw countless allegations and counter allegations being made by, to and about all of protagonists involved in this unsavoury episode as each of them tried to dig their way out of the mess or at least limit the amount of mud that would stick.

The eventual outcome shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone as the accepted wisdom was Blatter had worked himself into a position whereby he had become something of an untouchable at FIFA, much in the same way his predecessor Joao Havelange had.

However, what did come as a surprise (well it came as a surprise to me anyway!) was the level of shock at the fact that there appeared to be a culture of corruption in football’s corridors of power.

Allegations of corruption within governing bodies and large organisations are nothing new and generally get unearthed through investigative journalism, the testimony of whistleblowers, good old fashioned conspiracy theories or a combination of the three. This is certainly the case with FIFA where the allegations of corruption go back at least as far as 1974 when the Brazilian Joao Havelange took over from England’s Stanley Rous as head of football’s governing body.

In his excellent book How They Stole the Game David Yallop reveals how a culture of corruption was incumbent in FIFA long before Sepp Blatter took office as it reveals how Joao Havelange siphoned off funds from the Federation of Brazilian Sport (CBD), as well as from one of his own companies, to pay FIFA delegates for votes that would assure him the position of FIFA president.

Yallop claims that Havelange used this money for first class travel, lodgings and hospitality for himself and the delegates that had promised to vote for him and that during the 16 years that he controlled the CBD at least $6.6 million went unaccounted for.

This led to an enquiry being conducted by the Brazilian government but, rather than expose the corruption that was rife, the authorities opted to bail out the CBD, partly to save face and partly to avoid further questions being asked of Havelange’s political connections.

And it appears that where Havelange led FIFA delegates would follow, with the 1982 World Cup in Spain highlighting the extent of the greed. During that tournament ‘The bill for bringing the FIFA officials to Spain for World Cup 82 was over $3 million – more than it cost to transport and accommodate the twenty four teams’ (p.153 – How They Stole the Game).

It appears that this culture of corruption has carried over into the current regime as Yallop claims that in order to win the FIFA presidency in 1998 people acting on behalf of Sepp Blatter greased the palms of around 20 delegates, mainly from African Nations, to the tune $50,000 a man.

History was then seen to repeat itself as, just as Havelange had done 24 years earlier during his presidential campaign, Blatter was awarded the presidency. And this was in spite of the fact that UEFA’s Lennart Johansson was the clear frontrunner for the position having spent four years canvassing for votes as opposed to the four months that Blatter had been in the running for the presidency!

It is alleged that the ‘buying’ of the Asian and African votes were enough to swing the vote in Blatter’s favour although the man himself has done enough to distance himself from the allegations and he continues to vehemently deny any knowledge of such activities.

However, both the Asian and African confederations are reaping the benefits of Blatter’s presidency with the African Nations’ Cup being held every two years, despite the standard for such tournaments being every four years and the inconvenience it causes to European clubs who employ a large number of African players.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, Qatar were awarded the 2022 World Cup in spite of the fact that they currently have no infrastructure in place for the sport and it would be wholly impractical, if not dangerous, to play such a tournament in the searing desert heat.

Blatter’s argument that he wants to send the World Cup to ‘new territories’ does not even stand up to scrutiny in this instance as Australia were one of the countries that were also in the running for the 2022 World Cup.  Like Qatar, Australia is also a ‘new territory’ but it is one that is much better suited to hosting such a competition having hosted arguably the best Olympics of modern times (Sydney 2000) as well as having fledgling national league and a national side that has qualified for the last two World Cup tournaments.

You can draw your own conclusions from the above but what appears to be clear is that once a culture of corruption becomes entrenched, it is something that is passed on from one leader to the next.

The world is blinded when corruption is king.

 

Article written by Les Roberts, freelance journalist and writer for moneysupermarket.com

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