Fifa kingpin and a world cup of fraud
The Fall Of The House Of Fifa David Conn Yellow Jersey €21.99 ★★★★★
We have known for so long that Fifa, world football’s governing body, is rank with institutionalised corruption that at first glance it seems a redundant exercise to devote 350 pages to its exposure. But then if we are to hand a rifle to anyone to shoot fish in a barrel, there could be no better choice than David Conn, the dogged investigative reporter who did so much to highlight the Hillsborough cover-up.
The figures he uncovers in this book are breathtaking. Fifa’s officials leached hundreds of millions of pounds out of the game. And Conn is quick to point out this was not restricted to representatives of Third World corruptocracies. The Swiss were masters of the fiddle, while one of the most absurd conmen was an American with the perfect name for a sports bureaucrat: Chuck Blazer.
It was Blazer’s recruitment by the FBI to turn informer that finally blew the lid on Fifa’s fiddlers. At the heart of everything was Fifa’s president Sepp Blatter. For 17 years he presided over a system grown rotten with deception. Yet Conn can find no evidence that Blatter was himself on the take.
Yes, he ensured he was well remunerated, that he lived in a world of five-star suites. But his addiction was to power. He relished the trappings of presidency, jetting around the world hobnobbing with princes, popes and prime ministers.
He loved to proclaim that by gifting the World Cup, he was doing more for economic development than any other body. It was a deceitful chimera: all he left host nations with was a huge bill.
‘While Fifa’s month of football in 2014 cost Brazil a reported $13bn,’ Conn reports, ‘Fifa went home with $2.4bn from the worldwide TV rights and $1.6bn from marketing and sponsorship.’
Blatter used such profit from his quadrennial show to shore up his position, giving out development grants to tiny states whose single vote in presidential elections was as significant as the one afforded to China.
He never followed up to check how donations were spent. And so, while not financially corrupt himself, he gave leeway to noses everywhere being plunged into troughs.
When the FBI descended, its then director James Comey called Blatter’s operation ‘The World Cup of Fraud’.
Blatter was finally turfed out of football in 2015, apparently still convinced he was a worthy recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. And when Conn attempted to interview Fifa’s fiddlers and fraudsters, , it was only Blatter who accepted his invitation.
At the core of this book is the interview he gave, a pathetic selfjustification, staged in a plush Zurich restaurant where – to Conn’s evident embarrassment – Blatter insisted on paying.
Though you imagine that, ultimately, someone else picked up the tab.
With Blatter they always did.