Blatter brushes off Fifa bribery without a blush

THE sporting equivalent of an Arab Spring might be long overdue, but as the foot soldiers get hauled off to jail, the man memorably described as “perhaps the most successful nonhomicidal dictator of the past century” remains breezily upbeat.

The 79-year-old Sepp Blatter, who has been president of world football body Fifa for 17 years and triumphed in four elections, shook off this week’s arrest of seven officials and claims of bribery involving more than $100-million (R1.2-billion).

“We cannot allow the reputation of Fifa to be dragged through the mud any longer,” said Blatter, opening Fifa’s congress on Thursday.

The cognitive dissonance in his statement is remarkable, sort of like FW de Klerk speaking abstractly about the injustices of apartheid, as if he had been a spectator.

While Fifa’s dark prince said “it must also fall to me to be responsible for the reputation of our entire organisation”, he then campaigned for another four years as president, which he won late on Friday.

But if Blatter made a good fist of acting surprised, revelations of Fifa’s 24-year streak of corruption didn’t dumbfound many others.

As satirist Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show this week: “You know you’re corrupt when the indictment ends with ‘and so on’ . . . Fifa are so bad they got arrested by the Swiss, a country whose official policy on Nazi gold was, and I quote, ‘we’ll allow it’.”

South Africa, of course, is central to the new bribery claims.

In particular, the US indictment said two members of South Africa’s 2010 bid committee “conspired” to pay a $10-million bribe to ensure the country won the hosting rights.

Quite who these conspirators are remains conjecture, though there weren’t too many people on the committee. Inevitably, the names will seep out sooner or later.

On Thursday Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula feigned shock, saying the accusations of bribery would more readily fit in a movie.

But it is an old film that everyone else has seen by now, with Blatter cast in the role of the godfather.

Fifa’s reputation has truly preceded it. In 2004, before South Africa won the 2010 bid, Essop Pahad was quoted as saying: “If we have to choose between corrupting people and losing, let’s just lose.”

Chuck Blazer, a former Fifa executive turned whistle-blower, said in an affidavit that SA football official Danny Jordaan had been asked for bribes in 2011 to secure his election to the Fifa executive committee.

“Danny said he received calls from people in the middle of the night who were committed to supporting him, and that these people had to break their commitment,” Blazer said.

“[They] indicated that they received money, $15 000 per vote, and that if Danny could match it, he could have the vote. Danny lost.”

As much as it is a sport, football is a mega-business. Last year, after the World Cup in Brazil, Fifa collected $2.09-billion in revenue and posted a profit of $141-million.

After South Africa’s 2010 World Cup, Fifa clocked up $1.29-billion in revenue, and $202-million in profit.

About half of Fifa’s revenue comes from selling television rights, nearly a third from marketing rights, about 4% from hospitality rights, and the rest from ticket sales. It’s in these contracts that the real money lies.

Take the 2010 World Cup: there, a company called Match Event Services was appointed without public tender to be Fifa’s “exclusive accommodation provider”, while Match Hospitality scored the contract to provide hospitality packages. No surprise that Match Hospitality’s shareholders included Infront Sports, a company headed by Blatter’s nephew, Philippe Blatter.

You can see why Blatter might want to stay — even if the entire world thinks he should go.

This month 35 000 people in 27 countries responded to a poll by Transparency International asking simply: “Should Blatter stay?” Four out of five answered “no”, including 88% of South Africans. Asked, “do you have confidence in Fifa”, 69% of people said “no”.

A 2011 Transparency International report described Fifa as an “old boys’ network” because “with only three presidents since 1961 and the current president in his fourth term, Fifa does not match standards for rotation of top positions”.

But Blatter is not listening to anyone, not even greats like Gary Lineker. “If Blatter had even a crumb of dignity remaining, he’d walk away now, creep back to his lair, sit in his armchair and stroke his cat,” said the former England international.

But dignity, it seems, was long ago jettisoned from Fifa’s agenda.