You don’t have to get all worked up like David Zirin does (and this he does about most anything related to culture and sports) to see how FIFA is missing a magnificent opportunity to be a global agent for positive change. For a change.

The international soccer governing body’s tumultuous summer took another regrettable turn last week when it barred the Iranian women’s national soccer team from a major qualifier for the 2012 Olympics because the players compete in headscarves.

This violates FIFA’s policy against such attire, and Iran was forced to forfeit its match to Jordan, dashing its hopes of getting to London. Even Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein thinks this has gone too far, and has offered to mediate a resolution.

FIFA took this action on the heels of the dreadful re-election of boss man Sepp Blatter and allegations of bribery that have marred it in the worst scandals of its history, and that’s saying something. Appointing Henry Kissinger and Placido Domingo to the new “Council of Wisdom” won’t make the graft go away, nor will it offer anything of note beyond perhaps some good music.

Neither does Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deserve much praise for accusing FIFA of being “dictators and colonialists who want to impose their lifestyle on others.” He’s been rather good at doing that to his own people.

But it is a damning statement on the state of FIFA at a time when its reputation couldn’t be worse.

While soccer’s status as the world’s most popular sport has given Blatter the cover to be his own dictator, he’s been a poor steward in fostering the growth of the women’s game.

As the United States won the 1999 Women’s World Cup, there Blatter was on the platform with the trophy winners, prompting his many refrains that “the future of football is feminine.”

Except that in the 12 years since, it doesn’t appear to be anything more than what he intended at the time: A cheap and easy slogan, cashing in on a landmark moment. There are now age-group competitions for women, which is a good thing on one level. But on another, this has only expanded Blatter’s global network of patronage that maintains his power. It is, for the most part, a rather sorry all-male contingent.

Consider this: There is not a single woman on the FIFA Executive Committee, the group that chooses World Cup venues and that has been embroiled in the scandals. FIFA does have a Committee for Women’s Football, but its top two officers are men. Strangely enough, FIFA insists on all-female representation only in refereeing crews for its women’s international tournaments.

And yet Blatter still has the temerity to proclaim, as he did at the Women’s Under-17 World Championships last year, that the sport can liberate women.

FIFA’s headscarf policy, and its governing structure devoid of females in any position of authority, has had the effect of squelching them.

Women in Iranian society have shown their passion for soccer often enough for the frightened mullahs and government to bar them from going to stadiums and even movie theatres to watch games. All across the Arab and Muslim world, women are taking part in demonstrations to open their societies.

In some countries there, leaders are seeing the value in opening up the fields of play for women. Qatar, the controversial winner of the 2022 World Cup sweepstakes, started a women’s domestic soccer league — in part to woo over the European-dominated Lords of FIFA — and will be sending women athletes to the Olympics for the first time in London. Question the Qataris’ motives if you will, but they are encouraging women to get in the game.

(I’m sorry, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s girls soccer initiative launched this week won’t have the impact of a meaningful FIFA women’s soccer program that would tap into the organic growth of the game. This just looks like more America-knows-best preaching.)

In a sense, FIFA is acting the same way by requiring those from a different culture to meet its Western-based standards of dress. Iran’s women, who have been victimized enough by their own rulers, are now being denied the chance by FIFA to make a poignant statement against that very oppression. FIFA and Blatter need to understand that opening the doors of competition to women from countries like Iran is the first order of business. If FIFA had any women on its most powerful committees, they might have been able to advise them that the simple act of getting on the field, with or without a hijab, would be undeniably powerful and hard to reverse.

Start there, and then work on the cultural differences. Better yet, respect them. All FIFA has done is make Ahmadinejad seem more reasonable and enlightened by comparison, and that’s not easy to do.

Later this month, another Women’s World Cup gets underway in Germany, another reason to lament the timing of FIFA’s action. There will be no countries from the Middle East: Asia’s representatives are Japan, North Korea and Australia.

Arab and Muslim women will see no glimpse of women like themselves. Unless FIFA reverses its policy and gives the Iranian team another chance, the same is likely to be the case in London.

That would be bad not just for women’s soccer. It also would be a tragedy for women living in that part of world who may yearn for a different life, but have little to inspire them to try.

What I’m reading about sports and the media on Monday, July 5:

• The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review examines the travails of the LPGA as the U.S. Women’s Open gets underway at Oakmont Country Club. The recession and the lack of high-profile American stars to succeed the retired Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa have given new commissioner Michael Whan plenty to tackle. He sounds like many of his predecessors over the years, however, with this age-old pronouncement that is unlikely to resonate:

“There’s nothing wrong with our product. We just need to have more people see it.”

Tell that to women’s sports activists who can’t be bothered with something that isn’t related directly to Title IX, or can’t be blamed on the male sports culture. Sports business has never been their strong suit, but the ailing women’s sports industry needs all the backing it can get. The challenges facing the 60-year-old LPGA are far more critical than whether cheerleading should be declared a college sport, but guess what is getting most of the heat and light this summer?

Argh, exhale! It’s only Monday, right? To say that I’m restless about the way things are, and especially the conventional “wisdom” that informs perceptions of women in sports from the very women who claim to exalt them, would be a severe understatement.

• Another topic I’ve gotten really interested in following seriously in recent months is athlete development. My friend Tom Dunmore at Pitch Invasion today rounds up some good pieces exploring how the German youth soccer system was completely overhauled a decade ago, and is now yielding many of the young players who have been setting the World Cup on fire. This article from Ralph Honigstein at SI.com also explains how at the very youngest levels, skill development and the mastery of fundamentals is stressed over competition. Hello, USA?

• Stefan Fatsis has left South Africa, but gives the whole FIFA aristocracy a good spanking over at The New Republic’s World Cup blog. Like many American sports journalists digging into the politics, cronyism and corruption at FIFA, Fatsis is aghast at what he sees. These guys make the IOC look like pikers, but as the controversy over refereeing illustrates, Sepp Blatter and the boys are accountable to no one.

I’m absolutely exhausted from watching both the U.S. and England matches at the World Cup today. Unbelievable drama, emotion, anxiety and suspense is gripping casual American soccer fans flabbergasted by the lack of transparency from FIFA in explaining a controversial decision to wave off what would have been the winning goal from Maurice Edu of the U.S. in the 87th minute.

Not only is this America’s “Hand of God” soccer moment — embittered feelings, forever — it’s also another lesson for the U.S. sports public in the murky, unaccountable world of FIFA, the international soccer governing body that runs the World Cup. Not only is the International Olympic Committee more accountable when it comes to disclosure, but the Lords of FIFA often brandish their ability to get away with outrageous behavior.

My education in this regard came on the eve of the 2002 World Cup, which I was assigned to cover for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. There was a major scandal over FIFA finances that led the organization’s second-in-command, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, to make the issue public. His superior, FIFA boss and Swiss native Sepp Blatter, was up for re-election, and the claims were rather serious.

But not surprisingly, Blatter found a way to rid himself of the problem — and his pesky sidekick — as the FIFA executive committee gathered in Tokyo. As I sat in the media workroom in Seoul,  hearing Blatter’s victory speech, I was stunned by his referral to the unnamed Zen-Ruffinen:

“Vee haff svept avay Meestah Kleen!”

A British journalist sitting near me chuckled. This is old hat for the likes of him, but for me, American naïf, this was jaw-dropping stuff.

• At the excellent Run of Play site, Ryan O’Hanlon points out that not everyone’s able to watch because of work, etc. So what about them?