Depending on whom you are and what your views are, some good news did come out of the recent FIFA get together that was held down in the Bahamas, and no, it wasn’t the resignation of boss Sepp Blatter.

FIFA’s congress has decided to take away the age limit on players who want to change national teams. What this really means is that any player who has dual nationality can play at any level for one country, as long as it’s not at the full senior international level, and then may decide to play for their other country.

Up until now, players had to choose either one nationality or the other by the time they were 21 years old. FIFA has now taken the age limit away after it was brought up by the Algerian Football Association. Most of the other African countries agreed, as did a few others, and the motion to change the rule was voted on and passed by 58% of the 205 football federations present.

It’s not really certain how many players will benefit from the ruling, but in the case of Algeria, many of their players head over to France and other European nations to play at youth level and once they hit 21, are stuck and unable to return home to play at the senior level for their or their parent’s birth countries.

I’m not really sure if it’s a step in the right direction though, or if it’s just going to stir up more controversy. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens when a player suits up for one nation at the under 17 and under 21 levels or higher and then decides to switch teams. I’m sure there will be some unhappy people when it happens.

Also FIFA president Sepp Blatter told the congress that enclosed fencing at football stadiums around the world needs to be taken down as football supporters shouldn’t be treated like criminals or animals. He added that football needs better security systems to deal with recent tragedies such as the deaths of 19 fans in the Ivory Coast. But he said aren’t really the way to go.

Blatter said that England, which just marked the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster when 96 fans died, has being one of the world’s leaders when it comes to stadium security as there are no more fences and the grounds are all seaters. He added that English supporters still cause trouble when travelling out of the country, but that it was a different matter.

Blatter wasn’t finished there, as he asked FIFA members to try and improve security outside of the stadiums as that’s where a lot of the trouble often starts. The Hillsborough tragedy took place when fans from outside of the ground tried to push their way into the stadium.

He also said hooligans needed to be driven out of football as they aren’t real fans, Well we all know that Sepp, but are waiting for a solution to get rid of them once and for all, but it appears nobody has one at the moment.

And last but not least, FIFA announced that it made a US$184-million profit in 2008 and also came in at 13% under its budget. They collected $957 million in revenue and had $773 million in expenses. Most of the revenue came from television and marketing deals for next year’s World Cup in South Africa. FIFA’s assets are currently listed at about $1.6 billion.

So while Blatter may not necessarily be a good football man, I suppose he’s at least a pretty good businessman.