The Empire Strikes Back

Episode X: A Disturbance in the Football Force

The following is satire. Any resemblance to actual emperors, Sith Lords, galactic investment bankers or football administrators is purely coincidental... probably.

A long time ago...

In a football galaxy far, far away...

EPISODE X

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

There is unrest across the Football Galaxy.

Following the spectacular destruction of the FIFA Forward Enterprise Death Star, Emperor Gianni has returned to the Imperial Palace on Planet Zürich to reassure his loyal Stormtroopers that everything is proceeding exactly according to plan.

The Rebel Alliance, led by Obi-Wan Čeferin, the CONCACAF Squadron and an increasing number of Confederations who have suddenly rediscovered the concept of consultation, are beginning to question the Emperor's latest vision.

Meanwhile...

Far away from the marble halls of power...

Millions of volunteers continue lining football fields, blissfully unaware another 600-page strategic review has just been commissioned...

The Rise of Emperor Gianni

Every great saga needs an Emperor.

Football has one.

When Gianni Infantino first arrived, he wasn't supposed to become the Empire.

He was the reformer.

The fresh face who stepped over the smoking wreckage of his old master's throne and promised it would never, ever happen again.

The old master, of course, was Darth Blatter.

Banished to the outer rim after his own fall, stripped of his robes, last seen muttering about payments nobody could quite explain.

Nobody mentions Darth Blatter at Imperial functions anymore.

Which is, itself, a little suspicious.

The new Emperor's robes were modest.

The speeches were optimistic.

The Force seemed strong.

Ten years later...

The robes appear slightly grander.

The speeches slightly longer.

The trophy launches considerably longer.

And the competitions...

Well...

They seem to multiply faster than Stormtroopers.

Order 48

Every fall has a beginning, and this one had a number.

Not Order 66. Football was never quite that dramatic.

Order 48.

The directive that grew the World Cup from 32 teams to 48, handed down with great fanfare as a gift to the footballing galaxy, more nations, more matches, more glory for all.

Nobody clapped louder than the Emperor himself.

Nobody noticed, at the time, that "more of everything" is also just a very polite way of saying "harder to control."

In hindsight, Order 48 wasn't the moment football got bigger.

It was the moment the Empire stopped asking permission.

Enter Darth Calendar

No Emperor rules alone.

Standing faithfully beside him is perhaps the most feared Sith Lord in football history.

Darth Calendar.

Every morning he arrives carrying a black leather diary, and every morning the diary is somehow fuller than the day before.

"Your Majesty..."

"Yes?"

"We've found another international window."

"Excellent."

"We've expanded the Club World Cup."

"Excellent."

"The players haven't slept since March."

"That sounds like a player problem."

Darth Calendar never raises his voice.

He doesn't need to.

He just keeps scheduling.

The Death Star

Then came the Empire's greatest engineering achievement.

Not another trophy.

Not another tournament.

The FIFA Forward Enterprise.

The Death Star of football finance.

A magnificent battle station promising untold riches through private investment.

For those who missed the classified briefing, here's what the blueprint actually said. Spin FIFA's commercial rights, including the World Cup itself, into a new subsidiary worth 20 billion Imperial credits. Sell roughly a fifth of it to outside investors. Sweeten the deal for the 211 systems with 20 million credits each, available immediately, no questions asked.

Especially no questions asked.

The glossy presentations were impressive.

The consultants wore expensive suits.

Darth Calendar, ever efficient, had already blocked out the unveiling ceremony three months in advance.

There was only one small problem.

Someone left a thermal exhaust port.

Help Me Obi-Wan Čeferin, You're My Only Hope

At first the Rebels were few.

Then Obi-Wan Čeferin ignited the lightsaber.

CONCACAF climbed aboard.

Parts of Asia began asking awkward questions.

Even inside the Imperial Palace...

Stormtroopers reportedly started reading the briefing papers.

One of the Emperor's own senior advisers, a man with rather cosy ties to a certain White House panel, resigned rather than sit through the rest of the meeting.

Even Master Wenger, the old Jedi brought in to oversee football's development across the outer rim, stepped forward to say the retreat was necessary, no debate required.

Which is a very Jedi way of saying he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

Somewhere, Darth Calendar penciled in an emergency meeting to discuss the emergency meeting.

When your own Stormtroopers begin whispering, your own advisers start filing their resignations, and your own wise old Jedi masters start distancing themselves in careful, diplomatic sentences...

The Force is trying to tell you something.

The Confederation Cantina

It was like walking into the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Confederations that rarely agreed on anything suddenly found themselves nodding in agreement.

Some who had applauded enthusiastically only days earlier quietly shuffled toward the exit.

Others discovered, almost overnight, that they had always believed in consultation.

In the corner booth, a scruffy-looking captain from the CONCACAF sector leaned back, boots on the table.

"Fifty-two of them, lost confidence in a week," he said. "Never tell me the odds."

Beside him, something enormous and hairy growled its agreement.

Nobody was entirely sure whose ship they'd flown in on, or whether it would be for hire once the dust settled.

Politics.

It's a funny old galaxy.

By the time the dust settled, the Death Star had been scrapped and Obi-Wan Čeferin wasn't in a forgiving mood. UEFA released a statement that it had lost confidence in the Emperor's leadership altogether. Nothing, they said, should be ruled out.

That's not a lightsaber wave. That's a full Rebel fleet regrouping for round two.

The Ghost of Darth Blatter

That night, alone in the Imperial Palace, Emperor Gianni saw something flicker at the end of the hall.

A familiar shape.

Old robes. Older grudges.

"You were the one who was going to fix all this," said the ghost of Darth Blatter. "Not become it."

The Emperor said nothing.

"I built an empire on favours and back-room deals, and they dragged me out of it in disgrace," the ghost went on. "You built yours on promising you'd never do what I did."

"Same ending, though. Isn't it."

Then he was gone, cackling softly, off to wherever disgraced former Emperors go to watch the sequel with popcorn.

Lord Kushner Arrives

Just when things couldn't become stranger...

It turned out the Death Star had an anchor investor all along.

A New York investment house, founded by one Lord Kushner, younger brother of a rather more famous Kushner who happens to be married into a certain Presidential family currently running its own Empire a little further west.

Small galaxy.

The Emperor unveiled him as his newest adviser anyway, because subtlety was never really the Empire's strong suit.

Lord Kushner.

Supreme Chancellor for Commercial Opportunities, Galactic Real Estate and Synergy Optimisation.

Even the Supreme Leader of the wider Republic, a man the Emperor once decorated with the Football Peace Medal for services to intergalactic harmony, has reportedly gone rather quiet on the whole affair.

When your own Supreme Leader stops returning your holo-calls, that's not a great sign either.

"My Emperor..."

"We've monetised the Death Star."

"Excellent."

"Yoda's swamp has been rezoned for luxury waterfront apartments."

"Now we're talking."

Darth Calendar, taking notes in the corner, quietly added "swamp inspection" to next Tuesday.

The Imperial Rally

The Emperor stepped onto the balcony.

The crowd waited.

"My friends...

People are saying this is the biggest World Cup ever.

The best.

Nobody has ever seen tournaments like these.

Darth Vader came up to me...

Big fellow...

Very emotional...

Tears in his eyes...

He said...

'Sir... thank you for expanding everything.'

Beautiful moment."

Even C-3PO looked unconvinced.

"Sir, the probability of that exact conversation occurring is approximately three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one."

Nobody was listening to C-3PO either.

Attack of the Clone Letters

Then came perhaps the strangest chapter.

It turns out the Emperor had already secured pledges of loyalty from around 200 of the Galaxy's 211 systems, all neatly worded, all suspiciously similar, all filed away as proof that resistance was pointless.

Stormtrooper 143 looked puzzled.

"Sir... we've all written exactly the same letter."

Stormtrooper 287 smiled.

"That simply proves we're all thinking independently."

C-3PO quietly calculated the probability and decided, wisely, not to share it.

Then the Death Star blew up, and something curious happened.

One by one, systems that had signed the clone letters started quietly asking for them back.

Planet Wales was first to defect.

Turns out nobody wants to be caught holding a loyalty pledge to a battle station that no longer exists.

Order 48 had grown the competition.

Order 48 had also, it seems, grown the list of people willing to walk away from him.

General Figo Breaks Ranks

Then, from the outer systems, an old rival returned.

General Figo, once a contender for the Empire's throne himself before he stood down and swore his fleet to the Emperor's cause, stepped out of retirement.

He did not come quietly.

He'd flown with rogues his whole career, he said. But nothing in that career had prepared him for the kind of self-serving conduct he'd just watched play out at the top of the game he loved.

"Time for him to go," General Figo said. "Past time."

The cantina went silent.

It's one thing for the Rebels to turn on an Emperor.

It's another entirely when the general who once knelt and swore allegiance to him picks up a lightsaber of his own.

The Succession Whispers

Already, in the cantina's back booths, names are being traded like bounty contracts.

A club president from a galaxy far too glamorous for its own good.

A CONCACAF commander said to be quietly building his own fleet, right under everyone's nose.

Nobody has declared anything.

But everybody is counting votes.

Darth Calendar, ever the professional, has already pencilled in the coronation.

Just in case.

Master Yoda Clears His Throat

Finally...

Silence descended.

A tiny green figure appeared.

"Powerful... football is."

"Powerful... volunteers are."

"Powerful... children playing are."

"Serve football... leaders must."

"Serve themselves...

They must not."

Then he paused.

"Fear of losing power... leads to secrecy."

"Secrecy... leads to distrust."

"Distrust... leads to this whole sorry mess we find ourselves in."

Then, quieter still.

"Forgotten the grassroots... some have."

No one in the room argued.

Even Darth Calendar stopped writing.

Meanwhile... On Planet Grassroots

While the Empire debated billions...

Someone unlocked the clubrooms.

Someone marked the lines.

Someone pumped up footballs.

Someone sold sausages.

Someone washed jerseys.

Someone comforted a child who had just scored an own goal.

Someone celebrated another who had scored their first ever goal.

No consultants.

No investment vehicles.

No commercial entities.

Just football.

The Real Force

Perhaps that's the lesson.

Empires rise.

Empires fall.

Presidents come and go.

Strategies are launched.

Strategies are abandoned.

Working groups become steering committees.

Steering committees become review panels.

Review panels become discussion papers.

Discussion papers become another meeting.

Meanwhile...

Football quietly gets on with being football.

The Force has never lived in boardrooms.

It lives on suburban grounds.

Country ovals.

Community clubs.

In parents.

Coaches.

Referees.

Volunteers.

Children.

That's where football has always found its greatest strength.

May the Football Force Be With You

As the credits rolled over Planet Zürich...

Emperor Gianni disappeared into the Imperial Palace.

Darth Calendar had already scheduled three more tournaments, and possibly a fourth, out of spite.

Lord Kushner was still measuring Yoda's swamp.

Somewhere, a consultant was preparing a presentation titled:

"Unlocking Synergies Across the Galactic Football Ecosystem."

And somewhere else...

On a windswept suburban football ground...

A volunteer quietly hammered another corner flag into the ground before sunrise.

Without fanfare.

Without applause.

Without a PowerPoint.

Without a billion-dollar strategy.

Just because football needed them.

Master Yoda smiled.

"Strong with football... the Force is."

"Forget this... never should we."

"Power...

Temporary it is.

Football...

Forever it will be."

Darth Calendar checked his diary one last time.

"Your Majesty...

We've found room for another tournament."

The Emperor smiled.

"Where?"

Darth Calendar looked up.

"Christmas morning."

May the Football Force be with you. Always.