Sepptic Blatter: world sport’s most toxic figure
The FBI and Swiss law will be the toughest opponents Blatter has faced in 17 years at the top of Fifa, writes Jim White
ONE thing we can be sure of: when nature finally takes its toll, whatever it is that Sepp Blatter dies from, it will not be shame. As the organisation he has led for the past 17 years was plunged into turmoil by the dawn arrest of half a dozen senior officials on Wednesday, it was already made clear that Blatter would not resign the presidency of Fifa. He would not take executive responsibility, he was not going to fall on his sword.
After all, his spokesman made plain, who better to marshal the sweep through of Fifa’s Augean stables than Joseph Blatter?
Which might strike some as rather odd, given he is the very person who has presided over two decades of the steady accumulation of filth.
It was in 1975 that a young Swiss sports journalist turned marketing man first took a position at Fifa. Once ensconced, Blatter worked his way up through the body, helping to organise World Cups, learning along the way how to sell soccer. In June 1998, to the surprise of many, Blatter was voted in as Fifa’s president.
A rival for the post was quick to issue accusations of vote-buying by the Blatter camp. Not for the last time, the man himself responded to such charges with a serene smile and set about what he regarded as the most vital aspect of his work in charge of the world’s most popular sport: shoring up his own position.
Over the next 17 years, Blatter shamelessly adopted the politics of authoritarianism and shady dealings as he relentlessly sought re-election. He exchanged patronage for support at the ballot box. Realising that the old soccer world was rather too full of potential rivals, he ignored Italy, France and England and concentrated his benevolence on the smallest of territories. Since each constituent member has a single vote regardless of its size or soccer history, his logic was impeccable: never mind that it has a population some 38 000 times more substantial, Brazil is no more powerful when it comes to the Fifa voting process than Montserrat.
He bullishly extended what he came to term “the Fifa family”, to the point where Fifa currently has 16 more members than the UN.
And he showered the minor members with largesse. A couple of million donated to a Pacific island has considerable heft when it comes to the fouryearly voting congress.
To ensure there was plenty of cash to hand out, Blatter invigorated Fifa’s commercial activity. In the past four years, the body’s income, accrued from everything from broadcast rights to association with the world’s favourite computer soccer game, topped £3.7-billion (about R68-billion). It has more than £1billion in cash reserves, not bad for a nonprofit organisation.
And after paying out more than £100-million a year in personal expenses to its executives (Blatter’s actual salary remains a secret), much of that was distributed to those who had plenty to thank the president for.
Blatter became convinced that he and his body were a force for world betterment. Through the World Cup he insisted that his organisation could kick-start economic development. Surrounding himself with sycophants, feted with the trappings of a head of state, insisting at all times he be addressed as Mr President, he saw himself as a world statesman. His reward, he came to believe, would be a Nobel prize.
A more tangible corollary of his way of doing things, however, was that with so much money sloshing around, corruption became endemic. Never mind the alleged use of backhanders to decide the location for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, enrichment opportunities were seized. A report on Bloomberg.com recently re- vealed that the former Fifa official Jack Warner’s family firm owns a sports complex in Trinidad, largely built with £20-million of Fifa money. Worse, when Fifa sent sizeable financial aid to help the Haitian Football Association rebuild its infrastructure after the hurricane, Warner channelled most of it into his pocket.
But Blatter was not to be deflected by such sordid details. For years reporters have filed stories revealing a culture of brown envelopes. And for years Fifa has side-stepped any acknowledgement of wrongdoing, accusing its exposers of everything from cynicism to racism. Blatter has remained aloof, above it all.
And so this week, despite the scandal, Blatter was granted a further mandate to continue in office — although “mandate” may suggest a more democratic process than there was in Zurich on Friday when he was re-elected to a fifth term.
At no other organisation in the free world would he have maintained sway for so long given the reputational damage wrought by his presence. But Fifa marches to a different drum beat, shameless, unyielding.
How long this can last now the FBI and Swiss law have cast their eyes on it is moot. Fifa tried to suggest that Blatter presides over a selfless body let down by a few bad apples. And naturally Mr President would not be resigning. Soccer needs him now more than ever.
But the arrival of the FBI on his doorstep has meant his room for manoeuvre has been reduced. Even Blatter will find it hard to blather this out. The end of the most toxic figure in world sport may now be in sight. — © The Daily Telegraph, London