All is not well in the football world. There are open accusations of corruption in its administration from its international ruling body to club level. The stars earn money and adulation beyond the ability of many to cope with. A recent poll in the UK suggested that 77% of us think, fairly or otherwise, that they are "spoilt, overpaid and overrated".

I have just been watching the soccer World Cup final - victory for Latin American flair over European organization. The whole competition was a big success, with almost no crowd violence and a feeling that two new countries, Japan and South Korea, have joined the world family of football, with its common language and passion.

Yet all is not well in the football world. There are open accusations of corruption in its administration from its international ruling body to club level. The stars earn money and adulation beyond the ability of many to cope with. A recent poll in the UK suggested that 77% of us think, fairly or otherwise, that they are "spoilt, overpaid and overrated". Top clubs conspire to fleece their loyal supporters, and all are pawns in the battles of media empires.

As I watched the World Cup I asked myself whether sport is fated to be ever more money driven. Can the pendulum swing back the other way, and if so, who can give it a shove in the right direction?

In the weeks before the World Cup, two of the English team, both of whom also play for Manchester United, broke the same bone in their foot - one of the obscure metatarsal bones. The press went ballistic. One paper printed a full size picture of the England Captain's right foot on its front page, and invited its millions of readers to put their hands on it and pray for his recovery. But somewhere amid this hysteria I read that this type of injury tends to happen when the human body is too stressed; when too much is being asked of it too often.

I don’t even know if this is medically proven, but it conjured a picture of a sport systematically over extending its star players, not for higher achievement, but for increased gate money and broadcasting fees.
The stars themselves have the clout to push the pendulum back. Beckham, Ronaldo, Kahn, Zidane, Owen. Everyone listens to them. They have become super-rich on the back of football becoming a global business, but they know its down-side as well. Like almost everyone else, they would like it to be fairer, cleaner and less money centred. Could they strike a blow in that direction? There would be opposition, but what trends might they set, in other sports and in business as a whole?

What do you think? Send your comments to Caux Initiatives for Business.