Summary: International football over the past week has been faced with all kinds of challenges including more protests in Brazil and the ongoing readiness of stadiums for the World Cup this summer, but beneath those events were two important milestones which include the candidacy of Jerome Champagne for FIFA President in 2015 and the sudden resignation of Sandro Rosell at Barcelona FC which point to one clear problem inside the sport. A governance culture that continues to run amok and unregulated, armed with loads of ideas, but failures to address its core problem with conflicts of interest. Joining to discuss these matters and more is David Larkin of ChangeFIFA and we begin by examining the potential of a Champagne candidacy, what it signals and what are the considerations given that he has positioned himself as an outsider or change candidate, yet personal history does suggest otherwise. We dig into some of the politics, the endorsement by Pele which suggests that his candidacy may ultimately have wings, and whether past associations to Sepp Blatter further complicates both his viability and the politics behind the scenes. FIFA and Champagne also have the matter of a new statute that prohibits outside candidates from entering the election process, so we examine this development in light of the politics and the political process along with whether there is a plan in place to move Blatter to an honorary position in light of the Havelange history in the organization. We also examine new revelations into the matter of Sandro Rosell and Barcelona, and how his problems may not be necessarily tied to the matter of the Neymar transfer, but rather may be the result of years associated with Ricardo Texiera and the ISL business which may or may not be illegal, yet call into question whether player and national team match deals between Brazil and Qatar may indeed have served as a means to circumvent FFP regulations. We close on a bit of a silver lining in the case of FIFPro who clearly have turned something of a corner and have begun to show itself as far more willing to engage football administrators on the matters of transfers, employment fairness beyond the celebrity class of player and minimizing the risks that players endure all over the world with very little support and monitoring.
