Football remains the world’s most popular sport. Never before, however, has its world governing body, FIFA, been this unpopular. The current impasse involving bribery allegations deep inside the heart of the world’s richest sporting organisation is extremely bothersome, even to the part-time fan.

The lone thing saving FIFA is that fans can still watch the game.

Two weeks ago, Manchester United won the English Premier League title again in England, and days later the Lionel Messi-led Barcelona won another Champions League title. Both kept fans on the edge of their seats in sports bars across Barbados, so there’s no doubt that though FIFA is very unpopular these days, soccer itself is still on a great high.

But that doesn’t take away the fact that this impasse stinks to high heaven.

From even sitting on the fence without a partial opinion on the matter, the average sports fan can only wonder if money may have changed hands during a meeting of CONCACAF officials in Trinidad last month.

The thought is not new, but for sure this is the closest indication that bribery inside football in the Caribbean could be alive and well, unfortunately.

Earlier this month after FIFA’s ethics committee met and decided to suspend both CONCACAF president Austin “Jack” Warner and Asian boss Mohamed bin Hammam for their alleged involvement in the fiasco, FIFA’s general secretary Jerome Valcke made it clear there was evidence that US$40 000 had been offered to certain individuals, and individuals hired to fully investigate the matter would get to the bottom of the situation.

The Caribbean Football Union (CFU), which looks after the concerns of football associations in the Caribbean region but is also a full member of CONCACAF, had better be aware of just how dangerous this impasse could turn out to be.

For one thing, should Warner’s discipline be extended – say to the point of him being thrown out of FIFA – there is no doubt football in the Caribbean will suffer.

Everyone in the region knows that Warner has been the chief cook and bottle washer when it came to putting CONCACAF, and by extension, regional associations, on the map.

Under his watch, small countries like Jamaica and Trinidad have been able to reach the World Cup Finals.

Twenty years ago when Warner promised that a Caribbean team would eventually make the sport’s biggest spectacle, some scoffed and laugh. Warner had the last laugh, of course, when Jamaica made the 1998 World Cup tournament in France.

Warner did have his ways.

As much as he did for the region, his decisions to strengthen the football infrastructure in Trinidad, his homeland, in many ways at the expense of other Caribbean islands, brought him under fire.

Still, CONCACAF would not be where it is now without Austin “Jack” Warner.

And therein lies the problem.

The question has to be asked now, how will Caribbean countries, or the CFU – to be more specific, – survive without Warner at the helm of CONCACAF?

It’s not that Spanish-speaking countries which make up most of CONCACAF have something against countries of the CFU. It’s not like the United States, as the superpower of CONCACAF wants to shut down the CFU.

But, the natural way of thinking is now that Warner and his four-day replacement as president, Lisle Austin of Barbados, are both suspended, the CFU really has little, or no representation on CONCACAF.

It means that when development programmes, training symposiums, referee development and assignment placings, the hosting of international tournaments, and most of all, funds are available, the CFU may find itself at the back of CONCACAF, and by extension, FIFA’s begging line.

Caribbean football organizations, already cash-strapped and begging for physical and human resource development, are between a rock and hard place now.

Those same CFU officials met urgently in Trinidad earlier this week, and this was no doubt on the agenda.

The simple fact is that the CFU has to galvanize itself, but also remain open-minded when it comes to dealing with the new powers that be at the top of FIFA.

Local president Ronald Jones has already written FIFA demanding that Austin be re-instated, but knowing how FIFA works, that’s hardly likely.

What Jones needs to do, he’s partially done already.

The No. 1 thing was to assure the Barbadian public that no officials representing the Barbados Football Association took bribe money.

Now, he needs to show his Caribbean football brethren that unity is strength.

The “U” in CFU, after all, does stand for Union.

There is no doubt that, should CFU members individually take the high road, Caribbean football will suffer in the long run.

The CFU needs to make its presence felt on CONCACAF by, in the words of the late Prime Minister Errol Walton Barrow, being friends of all but satellites of none. That, and nothing else, will ensure the CFU’s ability to be a body of consequence.

The investigation into the actions of Warner and Bin Hammam will no doubt bring a tsunami to world football, as Warner previously suggested.

Lucky for football fans, no tsunami can stop this world from loving the sport of football.

Football will survive.