A lot of people in Halifax want the city to build a new stadium—but at what cost? Should we get one even if it means flirting with potential payola, kickbacks, graft and bribery?
Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t made up my mind on the stadium issue. There might indeed be a case for a stadium, based on long-term needs for the community, but unfortunately past discussion has been ass-backwards—the Commonwealth Games bid committee, for example, spent $2.3 million in architectural services, mostly to get a stadium designed specifically for the games, and only then bothered to think about what the thing could be used for afterwards. Likewise, in December city council decided to pursue a bid to host the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup and instructed staff to dream up a stadium proposal for the event; we’d figure out what to do with the stadium later, was the idea.
Thankfully, cooler heads in City Hall have gotten control of the issue, and are pursuing a more balanced approach. First, they will find out what city residents want in terms of long-term, day-to-day operations of a stadium—the right mix of recreational programming, high-school sports events, regional track meets and so forth—and design a stadium to fit those long-term business operations. Most importantly, they’ll put a price tag on those long-term operations, so we can figure out whether it’s worth it or not. Only then will we think about shoehorning in the occasional concert or soccer championship. This is, in short, good governance.
But stadium aside, should we be dealing with FIFA at all? International sports organizations are notorious for their ethical problems. Most famously, the Salt Lake City pursuit of the 2002 winter Olympics included improperly giving IOC members millions of dollars in free Super Bowl tickets, all-expenses-paid ski trips to Utah, plastic surgery and college scholarships and jobs for their families.
The Commonwealth Games Associations, too, have been accused of corruption. In 1999 two Australian officials claimed they were flat out hit up for bribes by CGA reps in return for voting for Australia’s bid to host the games. Halifax used its own wink-wink, nudge-nudge implied bribery strategy in pursuit of the 2014 Commonwealth Games—the bid committee spent more than $5 million lobbying CGA officials to vote for Halifax’s bid; that included $700,000 in cash grants, $10,000 each to 70 nations’ CGA.
And now there’s FIFA. In December the BBC aired an explosive documentary accusing three FIFA officials of taking bribes. Earlier this month, an ethics committee ruled that FIFA officials Amos Adumu and Slim Aloulou had in fact been trying to sell their votes, and two other officials were guilty of lesser charges. And do you wonder how the hottest place on earth, Qatar, with tight restrictions on alcohol consumption, won the right to host the men’s World Cup in 2022? The Wall Street Journal suggests that deal came thanks to $78 million in bribe money. Does Halifax really want to enter that world?
“Slow down!” say locals who want to host the Women’s World Cup—Halifax won’t deal with FIFA directly, but rather with the Canadian Soccer Association, which will in turn pursue the bid. These Pollyannas somehow believe that filter will prevent local stadium building from being corrupted.
But even if that unlikely scenario plays out, what about the CSA? At this very moment the Canadian women’s soccer team is on strike, refusing to play international games, because the rules for compensating women players are different from how male players are compensated, and because, say women players, their coach is being overruled by CSA officials. As it now stands, for Halifax to pursue the World Cup bid means this city will at the very least support a double standard that penalizes women.
Make no mistake: These questionable procedures corrupt everyone who gets involved with international sporting organizations. If Halifax wants to play ball, we should expect the worst ethical problems to bubble up to the top of our own community, as our own scandalous Commonwealth Games pursuit demonstrates.
A stadium may or may not be a good idea, but let’s stay clear of the FIFA morass.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.
This strikes me as really grasping at straws to find reasons to oppose hosting a world class event. Of course FIFA is morally compromised. So is pretty much every international body, from the IOC to the UN. Would we similarly say no to hosting a major UN summit simply because we question their effectiveness, and some country somwhere is boycotting peacekeeping missions?
You cannot but the vote of an IOC member. You cannot pay for a vacation for an IOC member.
You can buy the vote of a FIFA member, just make sure it is a bigger bag of money than the other offers.
Last year Portugal was bidding for the World Cup so they took a load of delegates off to Madeira for a nice vacation.
When the BBC ran an expose of FIFA corruption just days before the FIFA vote the dirty washing was out there.
Why is CSA chasing the tournament ? Is it just to get a few new stadiums.
The Dartmouth Sportsplex and the Halifax Forum cannot break even; why would we think a stadium would be anything other than a money pit ?
Wow. Negativity 101 from Bousquet – and he’s dead wrong to boot.
Question, sure…but to draw this parallel of corruption between FIFA and the construction of a locally built built stadium is utterly ludicrous. As “Joseph Howe” says, quite the straw grasping there Tim.
Constant, over-the-top negativity does eventually just become white noise, ya know.
I think we will get a stadium. The Feds won’t support a convention center and will try to play nice by giving us stadium funding instead. I hope it goes in Dartmouth Crossing where there is plenty of parking, restaurants and highway access.
Liverpool F C – you will know all about crappy old stadiums and how much a new one csts. Your boys have an ancient dump and the owners cannot find the $500,000,000 to build a new one. Same problem for the blue boys across town.
If HRM builds a $30,000,000 stadium and gets the province and feds to share the cost local taxpayers will be on the hook for annual debt payments of over $1,000,000.
And then add on the operating costs.
If you could spend over $1,000,000 a year to improve sports facilities for young people where would you spend the money, would you even agree to spend that money ?
A note on negativity and anonymous comments…
People, at their best, are naturally curious creatures. We’re equipped with powerful intellectual capacity that enables us to wonder and reason.
It’s surely the greatest and most unique thing about being human.
When we use reason rather than accepting conventional wisdom, traditional authority or unsupported ideas we are surely at our best.
Disagreeing and criticizing ideas as a way of refining them and making them better and stronger has been firmly established since ancient Greek times. New ideas emerge through discussion, examination and analysis and criticism of older ideas.
Surely this is the fundamental underpinning of the news editorial.
It is also the lesson learned in the first day of any class in logic or political science and a lesson learned early in life as we share views with family, friends and colleagues. We know that the conclusions we reach are often less important than the process by which we come up with them.
So it continues to astound me that local anonymous online posters could be so unhelpful in our community discussions. The ad homimen attacks and constant use of the notion of “negativity” if anyone presents a contra-minded point of view is anti-intellectual in the extreme.
I suspect that these kinds of comments would disappear completely if this was a normal real discussion where those involved had to identify themselves as human beings who must surely share our love of friends, home family and Halifax.
It’s OK to disagree – it has to be – it’s the only way to generate discussion and new fresh ideas. It’s not OK to be anti-intellectual and unwilling to use reason – our only real tool in all of this – to support, criticize and disagree in order to help make things better.
It’s also important to note that negativity – criticism – is in itself often the counter argument. If I were to catch Tim beating his dog I wouldn’t be under any obligation to find a better way for him to pummel the animal. I could just tell him to STOP IT, because the thing he is doing is fubar and there is broad social agreement that it won’t achieve any good end. Am I being negative? Sure. “Stop it” is a conclusion based on premises we are all expected to share and it’s shorthand because the dog is being beaten and I want it to stop. Likewise, editorial columns presuppose a number of premises shared by all readers due to space and time restrictions. The luxury and greatness of these comment posts is that if you really want to open up that box of premises and criticize one or more then we can do that and share in the discussion.
Blasting off a twitterism about negativity doesn’t get us very far.
So you don’t like linking FIFA and the case for a stadium in Halifax. That’s fine. Tim makes that very same point in the top and tail of his piece. You both agree they are separate arguments. There’s a great start. I suspect you may also agree on the whole FIFA part of the story. Maybe you agree on corruption in international sport organizations in general. Good. Now what is Tim saying about the stadium? His exact words are that he believes it may or may not be a good idea. That’s not negative. That’s a man open to discussion.
Ah, no, John Wesley Chisholm, Tim does link the issues. His exact words, in Para 1, read: “A lot of people in Halifax want the city to build a new stadium—but at what cost? Should we get one even if it means flirting with potential payola, kickbacks, graft and bribery?”
Now, that may not be an explicit link, but to anyone with more than a Grade 4 education, it’s obvious where he’s trying to go.
The point of an editorial is to take a stand on an issue and clearly enunciate why your argument makes sense. It’s not about ducking and weaving around the issue, or making dubious links between unrelated issues because it’s a sexier read, then later trying to back away because the logic simply isn’t there.
There are two issues here: a stadium, and the ethical issues surrounding FIFA. Pick one, and write about it – don’t do a half-assed job on both.
P.S.: Tim is the king of negativity on any (and often every) issue of the day, so please, don’t lecture others about playing the “negativity card” as as a sign of intellectual immaturity. Sometimes, the shoe fits – it certainly does on this piece of work.
And by the way, your condescending, wannabe-intellectual writing style is pompous tripe. Humourous? Yes. Smart? Not so much.
Sometimes less is more, Mr Chisholm.
Dartmouther, you fail to realize that JWC deems himself an expert on all things, especially those development- or business-related. Now he is even appearing in allnovascotia.com calling on the govt to step in and let him acquire property or rental space downtown at what he refers to at “market rates”, which aren’t market rates at all, but rather, the smaller sum that he is willing to pay. Genius!!!
There you go guys (or girls). I know this is what a person gets for speaking out in Halifax, but you know, I’m kind of determined to do it anyway. In fact, I’m making a project out of it. We should meet and talk about all this stuff. I’m available downtown most evenings.
jwc@thesea.ca