Canadian author says match fixing reaches highest level

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

September 3, 2008

It is, to start with, a fascinating read.

Declan Hill's book The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime, published this week and already stirring up loads of controversy around the world, is part true-crime potboiler, part spy thriller, part academic discourse and part journey of personal discovery.

A knowledge and passion for the world game isn't necessary to appreciate the work of the Canadian investigative journalist, but for those who do love soccer, this one will cut deeply. Like Hill, they will start out as skeptics, doubting that – despite a long history of match fixing and dirty refereeing that he details – big-time, big-money players could be persuaded to influence the outcome of matches on the planet's grandest sports stage, the World Cup.

By the end, the weight of evidence will at least begin to chip away at that disbelief.

There is no arguing with the fact that games have been fixed in relatively minor leagues in which the players are ill paid and vulnerable, or that referees have been influenced with money and sex, as has been documented in Germany, and even in Italy's Serie A.

But by the end of The Fix, a reader will wonder whether it's also possible that a mysterious Chinese gambling figure, whom Hill calls Lee Chin, meeting with associates in a KFC in Bangkok, could have arranged for some Ghanaian players to conspire to dump a World Cup quarter-final match against Brazil in 2006 by at least two goals.

The match, played at the magnificent stadium in Dortmund, was beautiful to behold close up, with both sides playing free-attacking soccer. In the end, the outcome, 3-0 for Brazil, was hardly regarded as a surprise. Just reaching the knockout round against the defending champions was a moral victory for the Ghanaians in their first World Cup.

But in the gambling underworld Hill describes, it's not about arranging the historic upset, it's not about throwing the biggest game, but merely about assuring the desired result, by the desired margin, thus creating certainty for the bettors. Those looking for a Black Sox-scale scandal will miss the fact that a goal or two in an obscure match in which the favourite triumphs with nothing much on the line can be just as valuable to superhigh-stakes gamblers (especially in the Internet age, where laying off enormous bets is a simple and nearly instant process) as a shocking upset.

The possibility that it could happen in the World Cup is something else again. Hill says he cried that day in Dortmund after the match, seeing it all come to pass, as he had been told it would.

He won't come out and say that the game was fixed, and he is careful to say that he doesn't think the entire Ghana team was involved.

“But I'm deeply suspicious of that game,” he says.

Treading on such hallowed ground hasn't won Hill any popularity contests with the world soccer establishment. “The reaction has been mixed,” he said yesterday from Paris, where he was promoting the book. “I'm either the biggest hero in the world or the biggest jerk.”

Lawsuits have been threatened from Ghana, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association has issued the requisite denials, and especially from those who clearly haven't read the book, there is the suggestion that it just couldn't happen the way he describes. Players are too highly paid to be influenced by bribes. The rewards of winning in a major international tournament are too great to be sold away. The spotlight is too bright to allow for under-the-table dealings.

But consider facts that no one disputes: that would-be match fixers have repeatedly approached players, who, unlike most North American professional athletes, aren't insulated by league-hired security forces; that enormous amounts have been wagered on extremely minor matches; that even at the World Cup, players have threatened to strike because they weren't receiving the money promised them, or have rebelled against coaches (as was the case with the Togo side in Germany); and that there are multiple stories of fixes involving Ghanaian teams, both at the national and club level.

So perhaps it didn't happen, but just try to make the case that it couldn't have happened. Perhaps other matches at the 2006 tournament that Hill labels as suspicious (Italy-Ukraine, Italy-Ghana) were actually on the up-and-up, but then ask yourself whether you're absolutely sure. Perhaps, as FIFA head Sepp Blatter would suggest, there may be bad people out there with enormous amounts of money in their pockets trying to fix World Cup matches, but they don't, they can't and they haven't. “The fixers must be the most unlucky tourists in the world,” Hill saids, and you can see the smile right through the transatlantic connection. “They go to all of these tournaments all over the world, and they never, ever succeed.”

Annual Review of Football Finance

Europe’s premier leagues

• The total European market grew to €13.6 billion in 2006/07, a €1 billion increase in revenue on the previous year.

• Revenue for the ‘big five’ European leagues exceeded €7 billion for the first time in 2006/07, up €402m (6%) to €7.1 billion.
The increase in revenue was achieved despite a €236m reduction in Italian Serie A revenues in 2006/07, which was primarily due to the relegation of Juventus into Serie B. Total revenue for the other four ‘big five’ European leagues increased by €638m (12%) in 2006/07.

• The English Premier League clubs’ revenue totalled €2.3 billion in 2006/07 (up 11%). Premier League total revenue was €0.9 billion (65%) higher than that reported by its nearest challenger, the German Bundesliga (€1.4 billion). For the first time since 2001/02, the Premier League has reported the highest revenue from each of the three main sources – matchday, broadcast and
commercial – amongst the ‘big five’ European leagues.

• Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga achieved the highest percentage increases in revenue – both up 15% – which helped these two leagues overtake Italy’s Serie A in 2006/07.
Juventus’s return to Serie A in 2007/08 should result in a close race for second place in next year’s edition, behind England’s Premier League.

• In four of the ‘big five’ European leagues, the wages/turnover ratio was in the relatively narrow range 62%-64% in 2006/07, with the German Bundesliga proving to be the exception with a much lower ratio of 45%. Despite a €184m increase in revenue in 2006/07, Bundesliga wage costs only increased by €12m, which bucks a trend seen elsewhere in the ‘big five’ leagues
where increases in revenues have historically largely flowed through to increased wage costs.

• Total wage costs for the ‘big five’ leagues increased by €260m (7%) in 2006/07, primarily driven by a €171m (13%) increase in English Premier League clubs’ wages to over €1.4 billion. Premier League clubs’ wages were more than €0.6 billion (75%) higher than in Spain’s La Liga (€0.8 billion) and double the total wage costs paid by any of the other ‘big five’ leagues.

• For the first time since our analysis began, the English Premier League has been knocked off the top spot in terms of operating profits amongst the ‘big five’ European leagues. With an impressive €168m (206%) increase in operating profits to €250m in 2006/07, the German Bundesliga generated €109m more in operating profits than England’s Premier League (€141m),
its closest rival. Bundesliga clubs’ operating margin was 18%, three times as high as the 6% for Premier League clubs.

• The improvement in Bundesliga clubs’ profitability has not been matched by recent on-pitch success. During the five seasons from 2003/04 to 2007/08, no Bundesliga clubs have reached the semifinals of the UEFA Champions League. In contrast, the English Premier League has provided three semi-finalists in both 2006/07 and 2007/08 and at least one finalist every season since Liverpool’s success in 2004/05.

Revenue and profitability

• The overall revenues of the top 92 professional clubs exceeded £2 billion for the first time in 2006/07.

• Premier League clubs’ revenues increased by 11% (£151m) to £1,530m in 2006/07. Average Premier League club revenues exceeded £75m for the first time.

• Championship club revenues increased by 3% (£11m) to £329m in 2006/07. League 1 revenues were unchanged at £102m whilst League 2 revenues increased by 3% (£2m) to £63m.

• The key components in Premier League clubs’ revenue growth in 2006/07 were matchday revenues, which increased 19% (£87m) and commercial revenues which increased by 15% (£52m). Broadcasting revenues were relatively flat in the year, increasing by 2% to £592m. We estimate that broadcasting revenues increased by just under 50% in 2007/08.

• The £87m increase in 2006/07 was a record for matchday revenue growth in a single year. Arsenal was the main contributor, reporting a 105% matchday revenue increase from £44m to
£91m for their first season in the Emirates Stadium. Other key contributors were Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur with increases of £21m, £17m and £15m respectively.

The £52m rise in commercial revenues in 2006/07 was also the biggest increase in that revenue stream ever recorded. Again, some of the largest clubs had significant growth in commercial revenues, with Chelsea recording the biggest increase (£14m).

• Revenue growth was focussed amongst the ‘big four’ clubs. On average, ‘big four’ club revenues increased by 24% (£34m) to £178m, while the rest of the Premier League clubs had average revenues of £50m in 2006/07.

• We estimate that total Premier League clubs’ revenues were £1.9 billion in 2007/08 based on the new broadcasting deals. If Premier League clubs maintain growth from both matchday and
commercial revenues then an annual total in excess of £2 billion should be reached before the end of the decade.

• Increases in both wages and other operating costs have led to a fall in operating profits for the Premier League clubs for the second consecutive year after five years of growth. Operating losses amongst Championship clubs increased for the third successive year, but the gap in operating performance between the average Premier League and Championship club decreased from £9.1m to £7.9m.

• In 2005/06, 16 Premier League clubs recorded operating profits. In 2006/07 half that number – eight clubs – recorded an operating profit. These were five long standing, well supported, Premier League clubs; Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Newcastle United and the three promoted clubs; Reading, Sheffield United and Watford.

• Manchester United shattered their own record for operating profits set in 2003/04 (£52m), with operating profits of £66m in 2006/07.

• We expect that operating profits will have been boosted in 2007/08 by increased broadcasting revenue. The question is how much of the increased revenues have already been spent and will
continue to be spent on wages and transfers. We expect that 2007/08 operating profits for the Premier League clubs will have exceeded the 2004/05 record of £162m, and could have doubled
from 2006/07 levels of £95m to exceed £200m for the first time.

• Aggregate operating losses for Championship clubs increased from £53m to £75m; in excess of £3m per club in 2006/07. Increased parachute payments and solidarity payments from the Premier League in 2007/08 should help arrest this decline.

• Total taxes contributed by the top 92 professional clubs were at a record high of £710m in 2006/07, up 11% on 2005/06. As a result, total taxes paid to the Exchequer by the clubs from the top four divisions over the years since 1992/93 are in excess of £5.5 billion.

Wages and transfers

• After the unprecedented fall in wage costs in 2004/05, Premier League clubs’ wage costs increased by 13% to £969m in 2006/07, a second consecutive year of growth. Premier League clubs’ total wages will have exceeded £1 billion for the first time in 2007/08, an average of more than £50m per club.

• The key performance indicator – wages/turnover ratio – has increased to 63% in 2006/07, which in general remains a reasonably comfortable level for the finances of clubs in England’s top division.

• All 20 Premier League clubs have reported an increase in wages in 2006/07, the first time this has happened since 1999/2000, whereas only 12 clubs reported an increase in revenue.

• The largest increases in wages in 2006/07 were reported by Chelsea (£19m), West Ham United (£13m), Portsmouth (£12m), Newcastle United (£10m) and Liverpool (£9m), with West Ham United and Portsmouth investing significantly in their playing squads following the arrival of new owners.

• Excluding the revenue and wages increases of the top five finishers and the three newly promoted clubs, the remaining Premier League clubs, who were competing to qualify for Europe or avoid relegation, reported an aggregate increase in wages of £61m, despite an £18m reduction in their revenue in 2006/07. This will have made significant inroads into spending the c.£300m of incremental annual revenue from 2007/08 from the new broadcasting agreements.

• Despite the increase in wage costs, the surplus of revenue over wages for the Premier League clubs has increased again from £525m to £561m (7%) in 2006/07.

• The significantly enhanced broadcast rights revenue in 2007/08 will provide Premier League clubs with the opportunity to address the League’s record high wages/turnover ratio of 63%.

• An increase of £31m (14%) in 2006/07 means that Championship clubs’ wages growth has exceeded revenue growth (£11m) resulting in an increase in the wages/turnover ratio to 79%, breaking the recent trend shown in the previous three years of around 72%.

• Premier League clubs invested a record £492m on total gross transfer spending in 2006/07. This record was then beaten in 2007/08 with Premier League clubs spending in excess of £600m in reported gross transfer fees in the summer 2007 and January 2008 transfer windows.

• The majority of Premier League clubs’ transfer spending continues to be with overseas clubs with £275m spent in 2006/07 (up from £256m in 2005/06). Once Football League clubs are considered, the net transfer spending leaving English football (to non English clubs and agents) has increased by 15% to a record £277m.

• No Premier League clubs reported a cash inflow on player transfers in 2006/07, which compares with two clubs with net transfer receipts in 2005/06 (Charlton Athletic and Manchester City). Transfer activity now almost always represents a net cash outflow for Premier League clubs which will therefore need to be funded by operating profits or borrowings.

• Total player costs for the top four divisions – being the aggregate of wage costs and net transfers spending – increased to a record high of £1.2 billion in 2006/07, a 12% increase on 2005/06.

• Football League clubs’ total transfer expenditure has increased by 79% from £48m to a record £86m with spending on buying players from the Premier League clubs doubling from £11m to £22m. The most significant net spenders in 2006/07 were the three clubs who subsequently managed to secure promotion to the Premier League: Sunderland, Birmingham City and Derby County – money ultimately well spent.

Stadia development and operations

• Total attendances across the four divisions of English football of 29.9m for 2007/08 are the highest since the 1967/68 season.

• Average attendance at 36,144 and total attendances of 13.7m for 2007/08 represent records for the Premier League.

• 2007/08 was the tenth consecutive season of average attendances over 30,000 and the eleventh consecutive season of utilisation over 90% in the Premier League.

• In terms of total attendances in 2007/08, the Championship is now the fourth biggest football league in the world eclipsing Serie A in Italy and Ligue 1 in France and pushing La Liga in Spain very close for third place.

• Revenue per attendee in the Premier League has more than doubled in a decade and sustains the dominance of the Premier League in matchday revenue generation in European football.

• Despite the predicted slowdown in development spending, stadia investment levels across the top 92 clubs were over £100m for the eleventh consecutive season with £161m invested in total in 2006/07. Almost £2.4 billion has now been invested by clubs since the Premier League began.

• Football League clubs invested £34m in 2006/07 – their highest amount since 2002/03.

Club financing

• Capital employed by Premier League clubs – being the aggregate of debt financing and shareholders funds – continued the rise of recent years to reach over £2.2 billion at the end of the 2006/07 season.

• The Premier League clubs’ net debt figure at summer 2007 increased by 19% to £2,469m. It is sometimes commented that “football is not like a normal business”; the net debt figure includes around £900m which is of a non-interest bearing ‘soft loan’ nature from club owners.

• The net debt figure includes £605m in relation to Red Football Shareholder Limited (the UK parent company of Manchester United) and £620m in respect of Chelsea Limited (the parent
company of Chelsea).

• By the end of the 2006/07 season, Roman Abramovich had injected around £575m of new money into Chelsea, through a combination of debt and equity. This represents by far the largest
contribution to a football club from any single funder.

• Around £1.4 billion has changed hands in respect of almost 20 changes of ownership of English clubs in the top two divisions since the start of 2005. For the majority of these transactions it is
too early to assess the overall financial impact on the clubs themselves.

• Premier League clubs incurred aggregate net interest charges from finance providers of £144m in 2006/07. The non-interest bearing nature of other loans at a number of clubs help to keep the Premier League clubs’ aggregate net debt service charge at under 6% of the overall debt balance.

• Based on the available information, the Championship clubs had aggregate net debt at the end of the 2006/07 season of £289m. Ten Championship clubs had filed accounts showing net debt at the end of the 2006/07 season in excess of £10m. In general, a Championship club can only hope to significantly reduce its net debt in the short/medium term via either promotion to the Premier League or an injection of equity funding from its owner.

• Below the top two divisions, managing the club’s financial position remains a challenge from one season to the next. Legacy debt issues and the risks taken by some boards of directors will, without correction, inevitably lead to a continuing flow of insolvency cases in the seasons to come.

Source: Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance

Laws of the Game & video referee

The Laws of the Game are the rules governing a game of association football. They are written and maintained by the International Football Association Board (IFAB).

The current Laws of the Game (LOTG) consist of 17 individual laws:
• Law 1: The Field of Play
• Law 2: The Ball
• Law 3: The Number of Players
• Law 4: The Players' Equipment
• Law 5: The Referee
• Law 6: The Assistant Referees
• Law 7: The Duration of the Match
• Law 8: The Start and Restart of Play
• Law 9: The Ball In and Out of Play
• Law 10: The Method of Scoring
• Law 11: Offside
• Law 12: Fouls and Misconduct
• Law 13: Free Kicks
• Law 14: The Penalty Kick
• Law 15: The Throw-In
• Law 16: The Goal Kick
• Law 17: Corner kick

One major problem of the game today is refereeing. Several contestable and unfair decisions are frequently taken by referees during football matches. We are going to present what are missions and duties of referees, and how it is possible to assist them in order to take good decision.

Laws concerning referees

LAW 5 – THE REFEREE

• takes action against team officials who fail to conduct themselves in a responsible manner and may, at his discretion, expel them from the field of play and its immediate surrounds
• Acts on the advice of assistant referees regarding incidents that he has not seen
• ensures that no unauthorized persons enter the field of play
• restarts the match after it has been stopped
• provides the appropriate authorities with a match report, which includes information on any disciplinary action taken against players, and/or team officials and any other incidents that occurred before, during or after the match

Decisions of the Referee

The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play are final.
The referee may only change a decision on realizing that it is incorrect or, at his discretion, on the advice of an assistant referee, provided that he has not restarted play or terminated the match.


LAW 6 – THE ASSISTANT REFEREES

Duties

Two assistant referees are appointed whose duties, subject to the decision of the referee, are to indicate:
• when the whole of the ball has passed out of the field of play
• which side is entitled to a corner kick, goal kick or throw-in
• when a player may be penalized for being in an offside position
• when a substitution is requested
• when misconduct or any other incident has occurred out of the view of the referee
• when offences have been committed whenever the assistants are closer to the action than the referee (this includes, in particular circumstances, offences committed in the penalty area)
• whether, at penalty kicks, the goalkeeper has moved forward before the ball has been kicked and if the ball has crossed the line

Assistance

The assistant referees also assist the referee to control the match in accordance with the Laws of the Game. In particular, they may enter the field of play to help control the 9.15 m distance.
In the event of undue interference or improper conduct, the referee will relieve an assistant referee of his duties and make a report to the appropriate authorities.
Problem of referees

Despite their presence, it still remains situations where the three referees are limited in taking decision when we consider the game speed. For example: has the ball passed the goal line or not? Has the fault been committed inside the penalty area or not? The list of questions is not exhaustive. With all the stakes in football nowadays (especially financial), it becomes necessary to introduce measures or additional means to help referees.

• More referees on the field of play?

We can think to add two additional referees on the field of play, one in each penalty area. Placed just on the goal line and next to the goal, this referee would monitor if the ball has passed the line but also faults committed inside penalty area.

• Referee video

A video referee (also known as the video umpire, instant replay official, television match official or third umpire) is a sport official called upon to help adjudicate a sports match using television footage. Video referees are used in many sports, including cricket, rugby union, rugby league and ice hockey. The role of the video referee differs varies, often they can only be called upon to adjudicate on specific events. Due to the cost of television cameras and other equipment needed for a video referee to function, most sports only employ them at a professional or top-class level.
Sport where video referee is already applied.

• Cricket
In cricket, the video referee is referred to as the third umpire. The third umpire is called upon to adjudicate by the two on-field umpires where they are unsure over a decision of a dismissal or boundary.

• Field hockey
Video umpires are used in top-level FIH events to assist the on-field umpires. The match umpires may refer decisions to the video umpire when they are uncertain of the correct decision relating to the awarding or disallowing of goals.

• Ice hockey
In ice hockey, the video referee is referred to as a Video Goal Judge.

• Rugby league
Video referees are also used in rugby league in the domestic National Rugby League (Australia/New Zealand), Super League (Europe) as well as in international matches. In rugby league the video referee can be called upon by the match official to determine the outcome of a possible try. The "video ref" can make judgments on knock-ons, offside, obstructions, hold-ups and whether or not a player has gone dead, but cannot rule on a forward pass. If a forward pass has gone un-noticed by the on-field officials it must be disregarded by the video ref, as such judgments cannot reliably be made due to camera angle effects.

• What about football?

Introducing video referee in football always remains object of discussion in football instance, players, supporters, etc.

• Arguments

Those who disagree with the using of video referee, FIFA and IFAB for instance, think it would break the principle universality in football. In fact, football is played at different levels (professional, amatory), in different country in the world (the richest and the poorest). So if the video was introduced in the game, it would be a clear discrimination in the way that football matches are umpired.
On the otherwise, they evoke the risk to assist to endless because of stoppages.

Those who agree for the using of video referee think there would be more equity in the game, less controversies decisions and the added that stoppages of play anyway is not going to make the game any slower. They agree with the fact that video referee should be used under control.

• IFAB’s position

The following article summarizes well the IFAB’s position about video referee:
Goal-line technology put on ice, (FIFA.com) Saturday 8 March 2008

At its Annual General Meeting today in Gleneagles, Scotland, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has decided to put on ice goal-line technology and to stop tests in this area until further notice. Amongst others, the questions of the human aspect of the game, the universality of the Laws of the Game, as well as the simplicity and efficiency of the technology were taken into consideration.

However, the IFAB has approved a proposal from FIFA to conduct an experiment involving two additional assistant referees who will mainly focus on fouls and misconduct in the penalty area. The competition in which this test will be conducted will be decided at a later stage.
The Board also discussed a proposal from the Scottish FA regarding the use of video evidence to sanction simulation after the game. Although the suggestion was not approved, the IFAB members agreed that simulation is an act of cheating which must be intensively fought and sanctioned during the game and that all member associations would be encouraged to do so.

• Solutions?

Today, with the stakes surrounding the football world, we think it’s now the time to introduce video referee in football. This tool could help referees and avoid endless debate after football matches. Video referee could be used for:

• Telling if a ball had actually crossed the line (there was talk of FIFA putting a chip in the ball recently).
• Punishing incidents that had gone unnoticed or were inadequately dealt with after the game.
• Dealing with people who have dived, feigned injury in a game retrospectively.

The system of joker could be applied like in tennis for instance:
The referees remain the boss of the game; each team has three jokers per match for instance. If one team disagrees with referees decisions, its coach will call on the fourth referee in charge of video. He analyses the video and communicate the result to the central referee. If the fourth referee estimate that this query is right, the central referee’s decision will be cancelled and the plaintiff team will keep his joker. On the contrary, the team will lose one joker.

The scandal of Africa's trafficked players

They come to Europe to play for AC Milan or Paris St-Germain, but the reality for many talented young African footballers, children not much older than nine, is that they will find themselves selling fake handbags on the streets. As the world marvels at the skills on display at African Nations Cup, we report from Ghana, Ivory Coast and France on a shocking new type of people trafficking

It is breakfast time in the slums of Jamestown, outside the Ghanaian capital, Accra. From underneath corrugated tin shacks and slum tarpaulins come the metallic clatter of early morning chores and the promise of plantains and hot milk. Defying their mothers, the local children are already on the beach playing football; they kick tightly wound balls of rags and elastic bands among piles of shattered bricks, shards of asbestos and broken glass. In the watery light of dawn their skinny chests bear the torn strips and faded club crests of teams from across Europe: Schalke, Ajax, Torino, Portsmouth, Benfica.

Behind the children, a weather-beaten billboard poster of Michael Essien stands guard over the foul-littered bay. Holding out a ball dotted with black stars, his country's national symbol, the Ghana and Chelsea midfielder beckons fans to 'Be Proud' and help Accra's city fathers with a clean-up of the city in preparation for this month's African Nations Cup.

By mid-afternoon there are still many skipping school, or their chores, as they dream of becoming the next African millionaire to play in the Champions League for Chelsea. And, as the afternoon passes and the heat recedes, every spare patch of land in Accra, from dusty railway sidings to disused quarry floors, becomes dotted with young footballers.

These are not mere kickabouts. They are the unlicensed football 'academies' of Accra, which have sprung up in response to the rising profile of African footballers in Europe. According to the Confederation of African Football, the sport's governing body in the continent, all such institutions must be registered with the local government or football association. The reality in Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast is that the greater the success of West African players in Europe, the more unaccredited academies spring up. Most demand fees from the children's parents and extended families, who often take them out of normal schooling to allow them to concentrate on football full-time. Since having a professional footballer in the family would be the financial equivalent of a lottery win, many reckon the risk to their child's education worth taking. As we discovered, some even sell their family homes and move to the city in order to enrol their children.

There are an estimated 500 illegal football academies operating in Accra alone. Thousands more are spread across Ghana. Many are run by the roadside; most have no proper training facilities. With biblical names such as 'Sons of Moses' and 'Lovers of Christ', each will have its own tatty bibs or T-shirts to distinguish it from the others. At the children's side, egging them on to run, pass, think quicker, will be a legion of unlicensed agents and coaches. Ninety per cent of the academies we visited in Accra and Abidjan - the principal city of Ivory Coast - were run by local men with limited experience of the game. Most described themselves as former footballers; but none was able to produce proof of his career. They are intent on finding one thing only: the next Essien or Didier Drogba. The next multi-million-pound golden ticket.

Coaches, as well as European and Arab middlemen, haggle over the best players, signing some as young as seven on tightly binding pre-contracts - effectively buying them from their families - with the hope of making thousands of dollars selling the boys on to clubs in Europe. In other cases, they extort the cost of passage from their families. Many take the deeds on houses and even family jewellery in return for their services. This process of exploitation is raising alarm among West Africa-based NGOs including Save the Children and Caritas. Tony Baffoe, the former Ghana captain, now an ambassador for this year's African Nations Cup, admits that 'the trafficking of children to play football is a reality we must all face'. 'There must be better control of illegal academies across Africa,' Baffoe continues. 'Families should be questioning these coaches, not putting all their hopes and life savings into the relationship they have with them.'

Barefoot, his training bib flapping and exposing his skinny ribs, Mafiua Asare runs with the ball. The unmarked pitch, with the sea on one side and one of Accra's largest slums on the other, is 90 per cent red earth and 10 per cent sand. The goalposts are rusted. The level of skill shown by the 10- and 11-year-old players is undeniably exceptional.

Mafiua's progress towards the goal is halted by a gust of wind that whips up red dust and burning debris from a waste dump adjacent to the pitch. As he stops to rub his eyes and gather his breath, the boy is clattered in a tackle from his 23-year-old coach, Isaac Aloti. 'You must learn never to stop little one,' he chastises his floored and bruised pupil.

Aloti - who claims to be a 'football expert' and former player, yet is unable to give the name of any team he has played for - introduces me to two of his star players, Daniel Vijo and Imano Buso, both 12. 'These are my boys,' he says. 'I have their contracts, their parents' signatures; they will go for trials in Europe when they are ready. We have already had some interest from a Paris Saint-Germain scout. The scouts come here and comb the city, looking at boys, looking for a glimmer, that piece of magic. Both these kids have it.'

The Jay Gyemie Academe (sic) has signed Daniel on a contract that promises Aloti 50 per cent of his first professional signing-on fee. Aloti says the contract is fair to all parties involved. 'If Daniel makes it then I will expect a reward for my time, for the expertise and skills I have taught him. His parents know this and they will not consent to the boy going without my cut. In the meantime, the family are saving to pay me the money for his journey to France; I can make everything smooth for the boy.'

'Isaac will help me achieve my dreams,' says Daniel, who has been taken out of school, and whose family has moved to Accra to enrol him in an academy. 'My mother has put her faith in him and my family is saving for my journey to France, where I can go on trial. We will pay Isaac the money and I will leave for my family. If I make it, I will take my mother to France with me and buy her a house in Paris.'

In Daniel's case, a legal trip to Europe is unlikely and, given the credibility of the academy, securing a trial would be virtually impossible. His most likely option is to travel to Europe illegally, using one of the many and dangerous boat routes from the west coast to the Canary Islands, and from there to the Spanish mainland. In May last year one of those boats, a leaking fishing trawler abandoned by its skipper, washed up on the shore of La Tejita beach in Tenerife with a cargo of 130 young African men. Some had hypothermia, all were badly dehydrated. Fifteen were teenagers who believed they were on their way to play for Marseille or Real Madrid.

The desire among young Africans to become professional footballers is evident in the number of children who recently attended continent-wide trials for the Aspire sports academy in Qatar. Fighting for around 23 places on Aspire's coveted football programme, approximately 750,000 children, from Ghana to Kenya and Nigeria to South Africa, went to trials.

For the children's families there is no greater glory and financial reward than footballing success in Europe, despite impossible odds. By West African standards, Ghana is doing well: steady economic growth, a stable, relatively democratic government and broad support from the West. By developed world standards, however, it remains desperately poor: a third of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, life expectancy is 60 for a child born today, and basic services such as electricity and water are often scarce. For the parents of young boys, the idea of their child succeeding in the football world is a considerable temptation, even when it means putting their education at risk.

In their suburban family home, Tina and Vivian Appiah bump and grind to Jamaican dance-hall music. Behind them is a huge portrait of their elder brother Stephen Appiah, a former football academy pupil who is now a millionaire five times over and Ghana's national captain. The Fenerbahce midfielder recently bought his sisters a beauty parlour and they now have someone run it for them. Their days are spent at leisure, watching television and ordering pizza.

'Stephen is a God in Ghana. Like a superman,' Tina says with a laugh. 'We are proud to be his sisters. His success has made all his family comfortable and made anyone who knows us insanely jealous. We can eat in five-star hotels and travel to Europe; we visited Stephen in Milan and also in Germany. He is now in Turkey and we hope to go soon.' Despite their brother's wealth, the large villa is still threadbare and unkempt. The girls aren't so keen on housework.

'Everyone wants our life,' Vivian says. 'The local women want success for their sons or brothers so they can have this. Were we sad when Stephen left us for the West? Sad? No, we were happy. Our mother had prayed to God for his success. When Stephen was a young boy he was very good at football and we all wanted to help him. My mother sold our television to pay for his boots, and the other children didn't complain because they wanted to help him too. We helped him - so now he can help us.'

Success stories such as that of Appiah, who was picked up by a scout while playing for Ghana's under-17 team in Italy, have had a positive effect. In West Africa serious money is being invested by European giants such as the Dutch clubs Ajax and Feyenoord, who both operate academies in Ghana. French clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco also maintain scouting networks in the region. English clubs have yet to catch on, although Manchester United have bought a controlling interest in Fortune FC, a South African second-division side. An English-backed academy cannot be far away. For the clubs it is a tempting notion. Just one top-class player every five years would cover the running costs. These accredited academies, if well run such as the Feyenoord set-up in Accra, offer boys not only top coaching, but an education. Academies run with this kind of professionalism are rare, however.

Charities and NGOs across West Africa are now voicing their concern about the activities of illegal football academies. The exploitation of young footballers has even been called a new 'slave trade' and is leaving a tragic legacy of homeless young footballing hopefuls across Europe. 'This football-related trafficking and the widespread creation of so-called schools of excellence is an area of huge growing concern for Save The Children,' says Heather Kerr, the charity's Ivory Coast country manager. 'The motivation for these children joining these footballing schools and being trafficked out of the country is purely about money and that is not surprising as these families are incredibly poor. Quite often we find it's the parents who send their children to the West or take their children out of school and force them to concentrate on becoming footballers because they want the youngsters to earn more money for the family.'

Last year Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, football's world governing body, accused Europe's richest clubs of 'despicable' behaviour and engaging in 'social and economic rape' as they scour the developing world for talent. But in many ways the problems for Africa begin at home. Earlier this year many players and officials were banned and four Ghanaian clubs were demoted to the third division in a match-fixing scandal, after a promotion play-off ended in a 31-0 win, though some of the punishments have been quashed on appeal. In Cameroon, players and club officials were banned from the sport for a number of years after a similar scandal. In diplomatic circles, passports for young players are regularly bought and sold. Marie-George Buffet, a former French Sports Minister, recently claimed that many French-run academies, both in France and in Africa, were corrupt and run by unlicensed agents who needed controlling.

During our visit to West Africa, we found boys from Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Mali playing for teams in Ivory Coast and Ghana in the hope of gaining passports from - and eventually playing for - their adopted nation. This clearly contravenes Fifa's eligibility rules, which state that a player must have a 'clear connection' with their national team, such as a parent or grandparent who was born in the relevant country.

In Accra, Kingsley Chibueze, in his late teens, tells me he is recovering from an injury inflicted on him during a tough derby. He is wearing the national strip of Ghana yet he is from Nigeria, having travelled here with two friends to enrol at an academy. 'Many of the boys on the pitch are from other countries - Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger,' he says. 'Even those who don't make it in Abidjan come here. Thousands of boys migrate to Accra because here we have a better chance of being spotted by a scout. No European scout is crazy enough to go to the slums of Lagos.

'I am a Nigerian but I am trying, like many others, to get a passport for Ghana. My uncle has travelled from Lagos with me, he has paid the money for my passport, so I am just waiting. I hope to play for Ghana's youth team and tour in Europe, that is my best chance of being spotted.'

On the streets of Accra, touts and agents advertise 'passport services' - everything from form-filling for the illiterate, to fake birth certificates - and are finding a new market for their criminal enterprise in young footballers.

Samuel Mundo, a passport agent, told us that it takes only US $100 to secure a Ghanaian passport. 'There is a lot of corruption here. When money is short, it is always possible to cut corners. We get many coaches here, paying for passports for their players. Most of the young men we get passports for are from Burkina Faso and Nigeria, but also from Mali and even as far as Cameroon. For a young footballer to have a passport from Ghana is a huge deal, because this is where the best teams come to look for players. To play for Ghana is the dream of many young African boys, to be like Essien or Appiah.'

According to Kingsley's coach, Kofi Bawuah, at least 20 per cent of the most talented youngsters in Accra's academies are immigrants from other parts of West and Central Africa. 'We have had boys playing for us from Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, Liberia... I could go on. They all come here to play and the best ones get passports for Ghana. The authorities here know the importance of football and the right word from a respected coach or money in the right hands will ensure a passport appears. They are picking the best apples from the tree and it isn't just happening in Ghana.

'Many of the Ivory Coast international players were born in Burkina Faso. Everything is fluid and with the right influence or money you can become part of any country. Kingsley has real talent, but he is Nigerian. That doesn't mean he won't play for Ghana.'

One man who knows all about the subject is Professor Pierre Lanfranchi, an expert in the development of football worldwide and a consultant to Fifa. He says corruption in Africa, with poorly run national governing bodies, makes it easy for European clubs to cherry-pick the best young players and that there are no foundations to the professional game in Africa. 'Fifa aim to start putting those foundations in place,' Lanfranchi says, 'by keeping promising young players at home, at least for another couple of years, but when there is so much money thrown at young players' "agents" or representatives, it is an optimistic plan.'

In the stairwell of a concrete high-rise block in Clichy-sous-Bois, one of Paris's worst ghettos, 17-year-old Bernard Bass sits shivering in the cold. Originally from Guinea-Bissau, he travelled from Ghana to Senegal to Tenerife on the promise of a trial with Metz, in eastern France, from a Lebanese agent. 'My mother sold our house and my two younger brothers started work at 12 to help pay for my passage,' says Bass, who was told by the agent he could make the journey to France by boat. The journey took two weeks. 'When we reached Europe I was kept in prison in Tenerife for a month and then flown to the mainland. I told my captors I was 18 and they let me go. I made it to France, but Metz had no idea who I was and threatened to report me to the police. Now I am here in Clichy-sous-Bois, staying on a friend's floor.'

His friend, Effa Steve, also 17 and a midfielder from Equatorial Guinea, came to France two years ago with the promise of a trial with Dijon. His visa and flight had been arranged by a Bulgarian middleman in his home country. As with Bernard, his mother sold her house to get him to Europe. He did have a trial, but he suffered a knee injury and the club lost interest. He has since been living in a high-rise squat in the Montrouge district of Paris. 'My visa expired after 30 days and Dijon said they had no interest in me,' Steve says. 'I came to Paris and stayed on, hoping for another trial. That was 2005. I play for an amateur team now, but the standard is very good and I don't always get a game. My life now is about avoiding arrest and finding somewhere to stay at night. We make money selling fake Prada handbags in the markets around Montparnasse. I share the floor of an abandoned apartment with four others.'

Culture Foot Solidaire is a charity set up to help African teenagers trafficked or sent to Europe for football trials, then abandoned. I meet Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, the president of the charity, in its tiny office in the northern suburbs of Paris. 'One top Spanish club have three young Cameroonian kids on their youth books. The boys are 10, 11, 12,' Mbvoumin claims. 'So few make it, but they all come, more and more each year, and they are getting younger all the time. Thousands of kids to France. Everything is fluid in Africa - borders and passports. An increasing number of boys are coming by plane, not just the boats through the Canary Islands. One-month visas are easy to get with bribes in Africa, but after they fail their trials they stay on. They have nothing to go back to. These kids are as young as 14, they end up on the streets, worse off and in more danger than they could ever be at home.'

Working with the help of Paris's desperately overstretched social-work programme, Mbvoumin, himself a former player from Cameroon, attempts to reach those boys most at risk. 'We are presently following 800 boys at the moment, aged from 10 to 18. The summer is fine, they can sleep on the streets, but now the winter is here they become more desperate, they become criminals, drug users. They come here with agents' promises ringing in their ears and all they are left with is the sound of police sirens and the smell of rotting rubbish in high-rise flats.'

There is now a huge business to be made from football, says Mbvoumin, and it feeds on people's dreams of a better life for their family. 'In Africa, when an important man tells a family their son has talent, that family will do everything to raise the money to send that boy to the West, sell their house, their youngest sons, their life away. These vulnerable people are lured into a kind of debt slavery in the expectation of a better life. These brokers are getting $3,000 per child and offering to smuggle them out on the promise that they will sign for a big club. So many boys have gone missing in this way. Yes, some of these boys have real talent, but it is not an agent they need, it is a mother and father.'

In the tough Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, we meet Simon, an illegal Cameroonian immigrant. He is wearing just a black polo-neck despite the cold; he doesn't own a jacket or a fleece. 'I came here two years ago on a 30-day visa,' Simon says, 'with the dream of playing for Paris Saint-Germain. In Cameroon I was a player. My family expected everything from me, when I left my mother hired out a local bar. They made a huge banner saying: "Good luck, we are so proud of you."

'After the club said no, part of me was too ashamed to return so I stayed on as an illegal. I tell my mother I will send money home soon, to pay the agent, I tell her that I am playing well. I feel like a condemned man, that my life is hopeless. I am 18 years old and in my village in Cameroon I am a hero.'

'There are some bad agents out there'
Emmanuel Eboue, Arsenal and Ivory Coast

When I was nine, I played in a small team in my hometown of Abidjan, in Cote D'Ivoire [Ivory Coast]. I played for them for five years before we played a friendly against the ASEC academy, a well known academy in the city, and their manager said he wanted me to join them.

I stayed at the academy for one-and-a-half years. It has a partnership with Beveren, the Belgian team, and every two years scouts come and pick out maybe three or four players to join the club. They told my agent that they wanted me. I played for Beveren for four years.

In Africa, and in Cote D'Ivoire especially, we have a lot of academies, but I don't think children are being exploited. There are some bad agents, but there are also a lot of good people. My agent was a very good person who helped me very much. When I first came to Belgium he came with me and made everything possible.

'Young players need more help and attention'
Andre Bikey, Reading and Cameroon

I never went to a football academy; I started playing at school and near my home. I played for a third-division team and it was only when I was selected for the Cameroon under-17 team that I started to take football seriously. During a tournament in Italy the Espanyol manager invited me to a trial; now I've played in Spain, Portugal, Moscow and England.

Many European teams go to Africa to watch boys with a view to bringing them to their club. It used to be only a few players, but now, every year in Cameroon, many children are brought to Europe for trials.

A lot of young players in Paris have nothing; they have come from Africa and if their trial doesn't go well they are left on the streets. Some agent will pick up the kid and take them to Europe, and if it doesn't work out they abandon him. Young players in Africa do need more help and more attention.


Sources : http://www.guardian.co.uk

EU seeks influence on European football - Ivo Belet Interview

Doping in association football

Unlike individual sports such as bicycling, weight-lifting, and track and field, football (soccer) is not widely associated with performance enhancing drugs. Like most high-profile team sports, football suffers more from an association with recreational drugs, the case of Diego Maradona and cocaine in 1991 being the best known of those.
Incidence of doping in football seems to be low, but much closer collaboration and further investigation seems needed with regard to banned substances, detection methods, and data collection worldwide.

International Associations

FIFA

In the run-up to the 2006 World Cup, the FIFA Congress ratified the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, being the last of the Olympic sports to agree to anti-doping. FIFA applies the minimum two-year ban for first-time offenders, however, there are exceptions. When a player accused of doping can prove the substance was not intended to enhance performance, FIFA can reduce the sanction to a warning in a first offense, a two-year ban for a second offense and lifetime ban in case of repetition.

UEFA

The European football union UEFA announced three doping cases for its competitions in the 2006-07 season, four less then in the previous season. The three positive findings compromised two cases of cannabis and one for a high concentration of Betamethasone at a Euro 2008 qualifier. In the 2006-07, UEFA carried out 1662 tests in and out of competitions, including 938 players tested for the blood doping substance EPO.

Doping cases and programs by country

Argentina

Arguably the most high profile case of doping in world football is the one of Diego Maradona at the 1994 World Cup in the USA, who was immediately suspended and later sanctioned for 18 months for intake of ephedrine. Maradona was also suspended for 15 months in 1991 after a failed doping test for cocaine while playing for Napoli in Italy.

Australia

In January 2007, Stan Lazaridis, playing for Perth Glory, returned a positive drug test for prescription alopecia medication, which is banned due to its potential as a masking agent for other performance-enhancing substances. He was found guilty by Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and was given a 12-Month suspension from football.He had not taken the prohibited substance to mask a performance enhancing drug but for legitimate therapeutic purposes as prescribed by his doctor. The Tribunal however held that an Anti-Doping violation had occurred and ordered the player ineligible to play for 12 months, backdated to the date of his positive test.

East Germany

Unlike other sports in the former German Democratic Republic, football did not have a government-run doping program due to the fact that football was not seen as internationally successful enough to justify the expense. Doping was carried out sporadically in football and from 1985, doping tests were carried out to prevent this practice. Manfred Höppner, head of the East German sports medicine department, accused the BFC Dynamo Berlin and 1. FC Lok Leipzig of doping. According to his statement, in October 1983, when both teams traveled abroad for European Cup matches, a test revealed high traces of Amphetamine and Methamphetamine in thirteen of nineteen Dynamo players, administered only 2-3 days before. In Lok's players, only slight traces were found and only on some players[9]. Falco Götz, a former Dynamo player and later manager in the German Bundesliga for Hertha BSC Berlin and 1. FC Nuremberg, denied any active knowledge but admitted to having been administered substances declared to be vitamines in his active time with the club.

England

So far, not a single Premiership player has ever tested positive for using performance-enhancing drugs in a league match. According to a statement of one of UK Sport's Independent Sampling Officers (ISO), "If a club knows in advance we're coming, and the club suspects one of their players, they keep him off training and his name doesn't appear on the list I am given". In the 1999-2000 season, testers were present at just 32 of the 3,500-plus league games, taking samples from two players of each side. Compare to other sports in the UK, like cricket or athletics, footballers are far less likely to be tested. A case of high profile was the one of Rio Ferdinand, who missed a drug test in September 2003 and found himself punished for it, being banned for eight months.
In the 2002-03 season, Rushden & Diamonds goalkeeper Billy Turley was let off with a mere warning after being found to have taken the anabolic steroid nandrolone. He was later banned for six months for testing positive for cocaine, which is deemed to be a recreational drug, becoming the first and only player so far to be banned after a domestic league match.
Middlesbrough's Abel Xavier was banned in November 2005 from football for 18 months by UEFA for taking anabolic steroids after testing positive for dianabol after a UEFA Cup match on 29 September 2005. He is the first player in Premiership history to be banned for using performance-enhancing substances, as opposed to recreational drugs.
Adrian Mutu of Chelsea was banned after he tested positive for cocaine in the 2003-2004 season. He was banned for 7 months and was subsequently sacked by Chelsea.

France

Jean-Jacques Eydelie, who played for Olympique Marseille in the 1-0 final victory over AC Milan in Munich in the 1993 Champions League final, said in the L'Equipe magazine in January 2006, that he and several team-mates received injections before the match, implying premeditated doping. Former Marseille president Bernard Tapie has taken legal action over articles suggesting players were given doping substances.


Germany

Peter Neururer, a coach in the German Bundesliga, accused players of his former club FC Schalke 04 of doping, alleging that almost all players in the club in the late 1980s took Captagon, an illegal substance in most countries, including Germany. Jens Lehmann, then a young player with the club, confirmed the allegations. The German football association DFB requested Neururer to release names of players involved in doping. The FC Schalke 04 has denied the allegations. Two former team doctors of Eintracht Braunschweig confessed administering Captagon to players of the club in the 1970s and 80's.
Germany national coach Joachim Löw insisted he has never seen an example of drug-abuse in German football.
Doping tests have been carried out in the Bundesliga since 1988 and after selected games two players are chosen at random to provide a urine sample. In the 2006-07 season, tests were carried out after 241 of 612 first and second division games. Since 1995, 15 players from the Bundesliga's first and second divisions have been accused of doping offences.

Italy

In Serie A, Inter Milan's Mohamed Kallon and Parma's Manuele Blasi have been banned after testing positive for nandrolone in September 2003.
According to the Gazzetta dello Sport, the death of four former Fiorentina players over the past 19 years were suspicious. Pino Longoni died at the age of 63 after suffering from an irreversible degenerative illness which narrowed the arteries in his brain, Bruno Beatrice died of leukaemia in 1987 aged 39, Nello Saltutti died after suffering a heart attack in 2003 aged 56, and Ugo Ferrante died in November 2004 of cancer of the tonsils aged 59. The Italian newspaper claimed their illnesses may have been brought on by Cortex and Micoren, drugs that were allegedly administered by Fiorentina's medical staff in the 1970s. However, Turin prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello, who has led Italy's fight against drug-taking in sport since 1998, said without hard evidence the Gazzetta's claims that the deaths might be linked to doping were presumptuous.

THE 2008 PROHIBITED LIST

www.uefa.com/newsfiles/631553.pdf

International Football Association Board

History

Though the rules of football had largely been standardized by the early 1880s, the UK's four football associations still each had slightly different rules. This posed a problem with international matches and when matches were played the rules of whoever was the home team were used. While this solution was workable, it was hardly ideal. To remedy this, the England's Football Association (The FA), the Scottish Football Association (SFA), the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and Northern Ireland's Irish Football Association (IFA) met on 6 December 1882 in Manchester, in order to set forth a common set of rules that could be applied to matches between the UK football associations' national teams. The conference created the first international competition, the British Home Championship, and proposed the establishment of a permanent board to regulate the laws of the game throughout Great Britain and Ireland.

Therefore, the first meeting of IFAB took place at the FA's offices at Holborn Viaduct in London on Wednesday June 2, 1886. The FA, SFA, FAW and IFA each had equal voting rights.
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international organising body for the sport, was formed in Paris in 1904 and declared that they would adhere to the rules laid down by IFAB. The growing popularity of the game internationally led to the admittance of FIFA representatives to IFAB in 1913.

Form & Function

The Laws of the Game are the preserve of the International Football Association Board, which thus occupies a major position in world football.

The Board holds an Ordinary Annual General Meeting, normally in the United Kingdom, to debate and decide upon changes in the rules and to issue official decrees relating to other football matters.

The International F.A. Board is composed of four representatives of FIFA and one each from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – an abiding acknowledgement of the historic significance of the British associations in world football. The FIFA representatives normally include the President and the General Secretary.

A three-quarters majority is required for any item to be passed. IFAB deliberations must be approved by at least six votes. Thus, FIFA's approval is necessary for any IFAB decision, but FIFA alone cannot change the Laws of the Game; they need to be agreed by at least two of the UK members. Initially, they only had two votes — the same number as each of UK associations — and decisions required a four-fifths majority to pass, meaning that the UK could still change the laws against FIFA's wishes if they all voted together. In 1958, the Board agreed on its current voting system, with each UK association having one vote, FIFA four and six votes being required to carry any motion.

While the International F.A. Board is by no means a mysterious institution, it does have a somewhat secretive aura. This has little to do with the Board's venerable age but more with the fact that it has a decisive influence on the rules of the world's most popular sport without ever appearing in the foreground (or being pushed there).

But in recent years particularly, the Board has been subject to more public and media attention, largely because of the ongoing discussion about alterations to the rules. Whether the topic is substitutions, duration of games, the offside rule, unsporting conduct, advertising on the field or thermal underwear, the Board has to deal with the fundamentals of the game as well as with less weighty items.

It is largely thanks to the conservative yet far-sighted attitude of the International F.A. Board that the Laws have undergone little change since the beginning, as any alterations need a three-quarters majority. But recent innovations such as the back pass rule and modifications pertaining to it, the different interpretations of the offside Law, goalkeeper substitution, punishment for tackles from behind, experiments with kick-ins instead of throw-ins and other ideas have proved that the Board is alert and receptive to ways of encouraging development and meeting the needs of modern football.

Questions

How can we explain the fact that with the globalization of football, the British football associations have still an influence on the rules through the IFAB ?

They invented modern football, they defined the rules, so they want to conserve their influence on the Laws of the Game. They are very conservative agreeing that they want to preserve the game authenticity. It is why with the three-fourths majority rule during a vote, they have the power to reject any game law modernization proposition. For instance they are opposed to the idea of introducing video referee in the game.

Should we allow only to FIFA the power to modify laws of the game?

We think it should be the case. FIFA’s missions are: Develop the game, touch the world, build a better future.
Played by thousands millions people worldwide, football is the heart and soul of FIFA and as the guardian of this most cherished game, FIFA has a great responsibility. This responsibility does not end with organizing the FIFA World Cup™ and the various other world cup competitions; it extends to safeguarding the Laws of the Game, developing the game around the world and to bringing hope to those less privileged.
So the Laws of the Game should concern the 208 members associations constituting the association. FIFA could set up a commission responsible of amandments in the Laws of the Game. Furthermore, each country would better accept the rules modifications because there are involved in the elaboration process.

In conclusion, since the end of the 19th century, football has become a worldwide phenomenon. It has succeeded outside the British borders. So the Laws of the Game shouldn’t be influenced by the British federations like it’s the case nowadays. It is abnormal that countries like Wales or North Ireland which are practically absent in the international football scene have as much power on the rules. Consequently, the IFAB must be integrated in the FIFA's organisation as a commission in charge of the laws, with members designated during FIFA’s general assembly.

Sources: www.fifa.com, Wikipedia