I still don’t believe it. It’s got to be one of those media April Fools jokes, except that it late June. It simply beggars belief that this is a genuinely kosher article. Yet it gets full page prominence in The Guardian 21/6/10 so I can only assume that Marina Hyde is on to something that we should all better know about. The blunt truth seems to be that FIFA has its own courts and these courts have the power to try and convict for any manner of misdemeanours relating to anything vaguely connected to their World Cup. I’m reading Hyde’s article for the forth time and I still can’t quite believe what I’m reading.

These FIFA World Cup Courts, labelled as such have, according to Hyde, been specially established to deal swiftly with anyone besmirching the good name of this football tournament. Again, according to Hyde’s research, South Africa agreed to the establishment of 56 World Cup Courts across the country, staffed by more than 1,500 dedicated personnel, including magistrates, prosecutors, public defenders and interpreters. At the time of Hyde writing her piece some 25 cases have already been heard, the most high profile case being that of two Zimbabweans who, robbed some foreign journalists on a Wednesday, were arrested on a Thursday, and began 15 year jail sentences on the Friday.

Now I, like most people, are all in favour of a law-abiding environment, and for those offending, quick justice seems preferable to long drawn out court case where only the legal teams seem to benefit. But I can’t help but smell a rat when a sovereign nation surrenders its legal authority to a totally unelected global corporation; in this case FIFA. The next big case currently going through the FIFA courts concern the women involved in the ‘ambush marketing’ ploy by some cheeky Dutch brewers. These women face a maximum jail sentence of six months. No doubt being white and having the Dutch authorities taking a keen interest, their punishment will likely be far more lenient than that of the Zimbabweans.

More typical cases have involved the heinous crime of stealing two cans of coke from the Soccer city corporate hospitality lounge. A plea of guilty and an immediate fine was instantly dispensed, a fine that will likely ensure the victim and his family will not be able to buy groceries that week thus forcing this dangerous fizzy drink stealing criminal into further acts of crime.

Hyde gets to the very nub of the matter when she highlights the fact that FIFA has its own laws that can turn civil matters such as unofficial marketing and selling into criminal offences. Just listen to the FIFA wording of this particular law and you could be forgiven into thinking you had been transported back to the dark days of Apartheid. Hyde quotes the FIFA clause as; unauthorised commercial activities inside and exclusion zone (and) entering into a designated area while in ‘unauthorised possession of a commercial object’. Welcome to the brave new world of corporate law. In other words if you try selling a locally made burger in an area designated as a McDonalds selling zone be prepared to be hauled in front of the FIFA courts.

In the world of FIFA corporate law, you don’t even have to be at the event to be found guilty. According to Hyde, a low cost airline was penalised by the FIFA legal machine for daring to show ‘pictures of footballs, vuvuzelas and stadiums in its advertising’.

Of course we should not be that surprised at the direction all this is leading us in. Remember how McDonalds acted with legal fury at those health food activists who had the temerity to brand McDonalds fast food, ‘McShit’. In a similar vein of corporate muscle flexing we have seen in the UK the speed to which BA and some private rail companies have rushed to the courts in an attempt to make striking virtually impossible. Get one piece of balloting minutia wrong and the company will try and get the courts to slap an injunction on the union in question.

We can now fully expect these type of corporate courts to be springing up at every corporate games and with the London 2012 Games looming ever closer, don’t be thinking of offending the mighty power of the IOC. All the talk about World cups and Olympic Games being good for the local people is just so much corporate marketing hype. The reality is that the big corporate sponsors are going to steam-roller over any attempt to encroach on their ability to maximise profits at these type of high profile events. So much for choice and democracy. I, for one, don’t want to be forced to exclusively eat junk food packed with dangerously high levels of salt, fat and sugar washed down with some equally disgusting fizzy drink every time I visit a major sporting event.

For these few words I and marina Hyde may already be in breach of some corporate FIFA by-law punishable by imprisonment in some privately run jail. Let’s just hope the prison food is more nutritious than a McDonalds and Coke takeaway.