As you’d expect, the rich clubs are near
the top – especially those from Europe.
And as usual, the poor come bottom.
These rankings are international, and who’d have thought it: “Norway, Norway, top of the league!” (equal points with Denmark and New Zealand).
The Scandinavians do punch above their
weight in the beautiful game, and the Maori ‘all whites’ did themselves proud
in the last World Cup.
But these are even more important than
football tables. Transparency
International have just ranked 174 countries on ‘perception of public sector
corruption’.
This is hugely important - but hard to measure objectively, which is why the ratings are based on numerous assessments from trusted partners as the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries.
As with any table, after glancing enviously at those at the top, we search below for those who have meaning for us.
Sadly, you’ll scroll down a long way to find the lowly league position of my beloved Oldham Athletic. And so it is with one of the countries I care for most: beautiful, beguiling Cambodia does terribly badly, a miserable 157th out of 174. That’s just 18 from the bottom of a very long list. In both cases it’s depressing – and completely predictable.
This certainly tallies with my experience of volunteering there for two years: any traveler on the muddy track out of my village has to pay the police just to pass. Any student wanting answers to their upcoming exam just buys them from the teacher.
Take the example of the head doctor at the hospital where I volunteered. A gentle, mild-mannered man, he was not perfect (you don’t get to manage the team without playing the game), but his heart is in the right place.
Yet suddenly this week he was summarily fired. Tragically, a boy died of a snakebite, allegedly after being refused treatment. Having spent two years of my life struggling to improve standards at that hospital, I’m sad to say staff incompetence is a possibility. But if you sacked the head of every hospital for that, there’d be none left in Cambodia. There’s clearly something dodgy gone on – the snake in the grass hisses ‘corruption’.
The trail leads clearly to the palace gates of the country’s harsh, wily, and utterly compromised premier. Hun Sen has personally presided over the institutionalized corruption of his country – it is all-pervading, at every level and in every aspect of life: 'the fish rots from the head'.
This truly is Cambodia’s Curse. Pulizer Prize winning journalist Joel Brinkley covered the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and when he returned thirty years later he found “the Cambodia people still among the most abused in the world. They suffer in the grip of a venal government that refuses to provide even the most basic of services without a bribe. The bulk of the populace lives just as Cambodians did a thousand years ago, while government officials divert unimaginable sums into their own pockets”.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Before I went to Cambodia, I had the privilege of volunteering in another breathtaking country with a terrible recent history, Rwanda. In many ways it has it worse – its genocide was more recent, its natural resources and outside aid for recovery much more limited.
Yet somehow this tiny, non-league nation has made it to number 50 out of 174 – the fringes of the top division, above such big names as Italy.
A quick look at who is in charge shows us why: Paul Kagame is strong , single-minded, and at times brutal – the present issues in neighbouring Congo cannot be ignored. But whilst imperfect, I see him as a largely benevolent dictator, not one of the greedy, corrupt despots who keep many other countries poor.
Even in the west we mustn’t be complacent: my own country, the UK, comes 17th in the table. I think that’s pretty poor for a country so rich and privileged. Surely we are in a position to role-model a top ten place, not struggle to get into the top twenty, behind the likes of Barbados.
Again, look to the leaders – Cameron’s weak and unprincipled responses to press intrusion, tax avoidance and his own powerful old boys network are hardly the mark of a statesman. Transparency International UK’s verdict is grim, slamming the “worrying complacency” and concluding that “Until the government acts with urgency… the UK will not be able to rise higher in the global anti-corruption league tables”.
What did you expect? We all know you need money to build a strong team. But you also need a top manager to deliver results. And the converse is also true, as any fan knows: if you're freefalling down the league, it's usually time to sack the boss.
This is hugely important - but hard to measure objectively, which is why the ratings are based on numerous assessments from trusted partners as the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries.
As with any table, after glancing enviously at those at the top, we search below for those who have meaning for us.
Sadly, you’ll scroll down a long way to find the lowly league position of my beloved Oldham Athletic. And so it is with one of the countries I care for most: beautiful, beguiling Cambodia does terribly badly, a miserable 157th out of 174. That’s just 18 from the bottom of a very long list. In both cases it’s depressing – and completely predictable.
This certainly tallies with my experience of volunteering there for two years: any traveler on the muddy track out of my village has to pay the police just to pass. Any student wanting answers to their upcoming exam just buys them from the teacher.
Take the example of the head doctor at the hospital where I volunteered. A gentle, mild-mannered man, he was not perfect (you don’t get to manage the team without playing the game), but his heart is in the right place.
Yet suddenly this week he was summarily fired. Tragically, a boy died of a snakebite, allegedly after being refused treatment. Having spent two years of my life struggling to improve standards at that hospital, I’m sad to say staff incompetence is a possibility. But if you sacked the head of every hospital for that, there’d be none left in Cambodia. There’s clearly something dodgy gone on – the snake in the grass hisses ‘corruption’.
The trail leads clearly to the palace gates of the country’s harsh, wily, and utterly compromised premier. Hun Sen has personally presided over the institutionalized corruption of his country – it is all-pervading, at every level and in every aspect of life: 'the fish rots from the head'.
This truly is Cambodia’s Curse. Pulizer Prize winning journalist Joel Brinkley covered the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and when he returned thirty years later he found “the Cambodia people still among the most abused in the world. They suffer in the grip of a venal government that refuses to provide even the most basic of services without a bribe. The bulk of the populace lives just as Cambodians did a thousand years ago, while government officials divert unimaginable sums into their own pockets”.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Before I went to Cambodia, I had the privilege of volunteering in another breathtaking country with a terrible recent history, Rwanda. In many ways it has it worse – its genocide was more recent, its natural resources and outside aid for recovery much more limited.
Yet somehow this tiny, non-league nation has made it to number 50 out of 174 – the fringes of the top division, above such big names as Italy.
A quick look at who is in charge shows us why: Paul Kagame is strong , single-minded, and at times brutal – the present issues in neighbouring Congo cannot be ignored. But whilst imperfect, I see him as a largely benevolent dictator, not one of the greedy, corrupt despots who keep many other countries poor.
Even in the west we mustn’t be complacent: my own country, the UK, comes 17th in the table. I think that’s pretty poor for a country so rich and privileged. Surely we are in a position to role-model a top ten place, not struggle to get into the top twenty, behind the likes of Barbados.
Again, look to the leaders – Cameron’s weak and unprincipled responses to press intrusion, tax avoidance and his own powerful old boys network are hardly the mark of a statesman. Transparency International UK’s verdict is grim, slamming the “worrying complacency” and concluding that “Until the government acts with urgency… the UK will not be able to rise higher in the global anti-corruption league tables”.
What did you expect? We all know you need money to build a strong team. But you also need a top manager to deliver results. And the converse is also true, as any fan knows: if you're freefalling down the league, it's usually time to sack the boss.
Have to agree with you Oly. I'd say the UK's standing is more than pretty poor - it's appalling and embarrassing! Glad but sad that the snake story features - just what we were thinking - like with Dr. W. - someone wanted them moved and the Hun Sen volunteer story was a very convenient excuse....
ReplyDeleteOn a footie note: have you noticed a certain team gradually creeping their way up the table? Only 7 points below mighty Chelsea in 3rd. now! They'll be 5th. some time in January I'd wager!...