The 58th FIFA place in the Australian metropolis on 29 and 30 May 2008 -the first time that FIFA’s supreme legislative body has met in Oceania.
For two days, the presidents, general secretaries and treasurers of over 200 football associations will discuss and vote on various issues at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. The items on the agenda include amendments to the FIFA Statutes and Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes relating, among other things, to the principle of promotion and relegation and provisions regarding eligibility to play for association teams.
Another important issue is the signing of the World Anti-Doping Code. FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President John Fahey signed a letter of intent at the Home of FIFA on 29 February 2008 to strengthen cooperation between the two organisations in the fight against doping. The agreement was reached following a meeting in which the revised version of the World Anti-Doping Code and the UNESCO Convention were discussed and during which FIFA expressed its satisfaction at the inclusion of more flexibility for sanctions in the revised code.
According to the terms of the letter of intent, FIFA has declared its unconditional support for WADA in the fight against doping and agreed to do its utmost to ensure that the relevant bodies within FIFA ratify the World Anti-Doping Code Version 3.0, whereas WADA has declared its respect for the specificity of team sports as compared to individual sports, with ongoing discussions regarding whereabouts information and testing pools for teams.
The letter of intent, which came into force immediately upon signature, will be valid until FIFA has formally ratified the Code Version 3.0 at the Congress in Sydney.
“6 + 5″ RULE
The 58th FIFA Congress will also -deliberate and decide on further sports political issues, including football at high altitude and the protection of national teams through the “6 + 5″ rule. The FIFA Football Committee, which met on 4 February 2008, considers the “6 + 5″ rule in principle as necessary and also advisable from a moral point of view, but expressed certain doubts as to its effectiveness. The FIFA President pleaded strongly in favour or the rule, which basically provides that a club team must start a match with at least six players who would be eligible for the national team of the country in which the club is domiciled. “Over the years and decades, by signing more and more foreign players, clubs have gradually lost
their identity, first locally and regionally, and even nationally’,” he said. “Young players lose their motivation in the same way as their perspectives dwindle in terms of one day getting a chance to play in their favourite club’s first team. Strong club competitions with huge prize money for the participating clubs have brought about a two-tier society in many countries as the gulf between the haves and have-nots has widened. Only two or three teams -play for the league title and all others are fighting against relegation.”
Against this background, Blatter plans to take action by submitting the “6 + 5″ rule to the Congress in Sydney. Mindful of the political environment, the FIFA President will not tackle supranational organisations such as the EU but rather convince them of FIFA’s approach, referring expressly to the mention of the specificity of sport in the new European Reform Treaty.

Brazil is known for producing a tremendous quantity of excellent footballers. But talent alone is not enough to become an outstanding player, as extraordinary levels of preparation and development are also needed. The Brazilian football association (CBF) offers this at its own football school, the EBF.
Who taught football to Brazilians? If you ever tried to find answers to this question, but never got there, maybe we can help you! Brazil is the country where children become fans of this or that team before they are even born. It is also the country where we are accustomed to saying that there are 180 million coaches, not fans. Nevertheless, these two popular sayings sound like cliches and do not help to explain our domination of the sport. For a long time, it was believed that Brazilian football talent came from the cradle and not from youth team preparation by coaches, doctors, physiotherapists and managers. That school of thought is wrong. Brazilian sporting culture, so strongly linked to the country’s identity, is attributed to a wealth of talent and natural gifts, but never serious specialized work. It is unjust not to give Brazil enough credit for so many titles and so much art and beauty.
“People think that players grow from nothing. This is not true,” says Brazil’s national team coach Dunga, captain of the winners of the 1994 FIFA World Cup™. He and his assistant coach, Jorginho, Brazil’s right back in the USA, are the figureheads of a new trend at the CBF.
DREAMS BECOME REALITY
“We have the best football on the planet, we have won five FIFA World Cups™, every year one of our players stands out as one of the best of the season, and we have the athlete of the century, Pele. But that’s not enough! We need to keep developing our game and our players.” That was the CBF’s thinking when in 2005 it created the Escola Brasileira de Futebol (EBF), the Brazilian football school. Tasked with developing the sport in a democratic and efficient manner throughout the whole country, the first steps taken by the establishment have been a success.
The idea was to understand what we had to learn and what we had to teach. Creating an official football coaches course, making refereeing professional, forging closer links with universities, establishing a network between the CBF and its local federations and devising courses focused on sports medicine and administration should in theory produce even more football experts across the country, who can then show to the world how our wonder kids are born.
FIFA’s Development Division actively participated in the process of creating the EBF. Those who think that the financial resources approved by the Goal Programme were only channelled into facilities, auditoriums, computers and software fail to appreciate the full extent of the project. The partnership between both entities is still very recent, even though we are proud to say that we already have excellent exchange programmes and clinics, better-trained referees, a refereeing teaching board, a project for an official coaches course and partnerships and exchanges with private businesses and universities. In three years, the dreams have started to become reality.
“CRAQUE BRASILEIRAO”
In considering the task that the CBF faced in setting up the EBF, it is worth pointing out that Brazil has the geographic dimensions of a whole continent, with an area of 8.5 million square kilometres that occupies 47 per cent of South America, and that there are many different regional and cultural differences that make this vast country very difficult to manage.
Nevertheless, the CBF has never felt intimidated by such adverse conditions and has carried forward the EBF’s project as part of a plan to modernise Brazilian football.
Since 2005, many events, courses, exchange programmes and congresses have marked milestones in our short history, e.g. FIFA FUTURO III courses for administrators, FIFA courses for coaches and refereeing instructors, sports medicine congresses, national seminars, football clinics with CBF professionals held in partnership with Brazilian clubs, etc. But the school’s first step was to hold a national coaches course by teleconference, a small step but an extremely ambitious one.
A further revolutionary project was recently developed by the CBF, together with the EBF and its local federations: the DURT-e. DURT-e is an online registration system for all professional players in Brazil that uses the EBF’s network at each of the 27 local federations and software developed by the CBF’s IT department.
Another important event, which surprised many because of its great originality, was the exchange promoted between Cirque du Soleil athletes and youth team players, as well as the Canadian group’s participation at the CBF’s annual party, the “Craque Brasileirao”. We were able to share our experience of football with one of world’s biggest entertainment companies.
FIVE-STAR BUSINESS
The EBF welcomes foreign athletes, managers and coaches to the selecao’s official training centre at Granja Comary. “Football was born in England, when the British had an empire and used to travel all around the world. People of railways introduced the ball to South America, oilers to the Middle East,” says the American journalist Franklin Foer in his book How Football Explains the World. The author compares sport with the politics and history of the last century. He also says that globalisation and technological developments tend to erode differences, and that includes playing styles.
The CBF’s “Top Training Brazil” exchange programme takes the theory of football art beyond our frontiers, welcoming coaches and players from all around the world to our official training centre. “We consider this a pleasure and a duty rather than a challenge. Classes are given in English and topics such as talent identification, skill development (the Brazilian flair), deceptive movements and small-sided games are taught to show why our country keeps producing stars. Everybody who joins the CBF’s official football clinic takes part in training and plays friendly matches in accordance with the age and the technical level of the group. The schedule includes two daily training sessions, balanced meals, match analysis, lectures and one day off per week. There are also three friendly matches per week if the group reaches its development target in training.
Teams stay at Granja Comary – or, if the groups exceed the maximum capacity, at hotels at Teresopolis, where all Brazil’s national squads do their training. Transport by private bus, health insurance, translators, security guards, meals and everything needed for training is provided by the CBF. Qualified staff provide the athletes with the five-star football education, making the EBF a five-star business.

One of the most important decisions taken in this new era of Chilean football was to secure the return to the fold of Marcelo Salas, La Roja’s leading football goalscorer and a national hero. On the day he confirmed his comeback, Bielsa praised him and even went as far as to explain that, “I am an admirer of his past. I will respectfully look at his present to assess his chances with the national team.” It sounded like he was just being diplomatic, but not at all: Bielsa called Salas up at the age of 33 and considers him one of the figureheads of the team due to his influence on the group and on people in general. He is an icon in his home country and even scored two goals against Italy at the 1998 FIFA World Cup™ in France, as well as another brace against Uruguay at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo during the current qualifying campaign.
“El Matador”, who made a name for himself on the global stage (he played for Juventus and Lazio), is close to equalling Hernan Crespo as the all-time leading football goalscorer in the South American qualifiers for the World Cup™ and is a legend in his home country with 37 official goals for Chile. “To be honest I didn’t feature in the immediate plans for the national team … or the future plans,” he says with a smile. “I know that I’m always going to be in the spotlight, so it’s important for me to score goals, to contribute and show that I’m still relevant. Things come full circle in life and fortunately, I believed and continue to believe in myself. I am very critical of myself; when I am no longer capable I will step aside without them having to tell me to.” Following Bielsa’s praise for the legendary football striker, Salas returned the compliment by talking of his high standing and the expectations that he had raised. “El Matador” is happy with his present situation, but also recognises that playing at the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ is not his sole objective: “I am taking part but I’m not thinking of South Africa,” he says.