there is such a thing as bad publicity

How can a massive organisation like FIFA have got itself into such a mess? I don’t know whether any of the allegations that are bouncing around about the shenanigans at FIFA are true. I don’t know whether anyone has been bribing anyone else. I don’t know whether the process of awarding of the World Cup Finals was corrupted. It has to be said that all of the people who have been accused of these different things have denied them. In which case I would expect a stream of libel lawsuits to follow in order…

I come back to my initial question. How can a massive organisation like FIFA have got itself into such a mess? Surely those in leadership are aware of how this looks. Surely they know that the general public tend to assume that there is no smoke without fire. As a former lawyer I try very hard not to make judgements about people or events without knowing enough facts. As a Christian I try not to judge people at all. But these people are not making it easy for me!

Sadly churches are equally capable of shooting themselves in the foot. It’s probably unlikely that people are going to be bribing one another in order to influence the direction of a church. Ministers are very unlikely to be able to afford a bung in order to encourage a church to call them. But we know that the media is happy to tell stories of scandals, schisms and sundry ‘stinks’ that happen in churches.

But when we criticise each other in public are we acting like FIFA? I am not saying that we should not be critical. If that were the case then we might as well delete all of the prophetic books from our Bibles and remove a lot of what Jesus said about Pharisees. But there are ways of doing this that can demonstrate love, kindness, respect and integrity. If we lack grace in public, how will people think that we have experienced and share God’s grace? If we are aggressive towards each other, how will people believe that we have experienced God’s peace and love?

I would love to think that we can show the rest of the planet what it is like to be able to disagree without falling out. We should be able to dissent without fighting. We must be able to speak prophetically while at the same time offering hope and light.

And here are some genuine football commentaries…

1. Well, it’s Liverpool two, Ipswich nil, and if the score stays this way, I’ve got to fancy Liverpool for the win.

2. He had an eternity to play that ball, but took too long.

3. And so they have not been able to improve on their 100% record.

4. With the last kick of the game, he scored with a header.

5. Well, it’s a fabulous kaleidoscope of colour: almost all the Brazilians are wearing yellow shirts.

6. If that had gone in, it would definitely have been a goal.

7. Their manager, Howard Wilkinson, isn’t here today, which strongly suggests that he may be elsewhere.

8. I am a firm believer that if one team scores a goal, the other need to score two to win.

9. If a team scores early on, it often takes an early lead.

10. You cannot possibly have counted the number of passes made, but there were eight.