MARTIN SAMUEL
James COmeY, direct or of t he Federal Bureau of Investigat i on, s t ood at t he podium, an upright, imposing figure, and delivered a message of purest hope. ‘This may be the way things are,’ he said, ‘but this is not the way things have to be.’ He sounded, for a moment, like Gary Cooper.
‘ every line in his face spelled honesty,’ Frank Capra said of Cooper, and set against the villainous toads of FIFa, Comey had that about him, too. He is 6ft 8in, the tallest member of the Obama administration, the tallest FBI director there has been and he will need to be big, from here. It is hard to imagine a slipperier, more nefarious bunch than the men in charge of football.
They are brazen, they are shamel ess, they are flagrant i n their contempt for law. They twist the rules of the countries they visit, they manipulate, they conspire, they corrupt and diminish. Their leader is a tawdry, machiavellian politico with the air of one who feels arrogantly insulated against society’s rules.
some fall for him, some simply live in his pocket. He is kept in power by a network of palm greasers, tinpot dictators and sycophants, some of the most odious slugs ever to grace the VVIP seats of a football stadium.
It says something for the FIFa lifestyle that one V was not good enough. Here are people who see themselves as incredibly powerful and impossibly important. These are the people that the FBI’s Gary Cooper must now take down.
a few of them are in custody already. Hiding behind the hotel sheets raised by lackeys as they were herded into vehicles following dawn raids at their five-star establishment in Zurich. squirming and now haggling over their extradition orders, shielded briefly by the legal process.
sepp Blatter may even have the front to stand for his fifth term. The FBI haven’t got to him, yet.
That is part of the hope: that these men will rat each other out under questioning, turn grass as america’s FIFa representative Chuck Blazer did, allowing the net to spread wider and wider, until even the biggest catch will be within reach.
Not just Blatter, but that whole l ousy 2018 and 2022 business as well. The World Cup awards to Russia and Qatar that everyone presumes were corrupted, but few believe can be altered.
Unsurprisingly, it was these rogue decisions that FIFa rushed to protect yesterday. The venues of the 2018 World Cup and 2022 World Cup would stand, they said. There would be no revote. It was the first of many attempts to ensure the watching millions that it was FIFa business as usual. The election would go ahead as planned, Herr Blatter’s coronation would go ahead as planned, the Congress would proceed as normal and these arrests were, in essence, nothing to do with the governing body.
at one stage, it was claimed FIFa were the suffering party. This i s what they do. style it out. see what they can get away with. Their premises should be surrounded by villagers with burning torches right now. They should be pursuing Blatter and his monstrous creation through the streets i n hokey horror movie fashion.
Instead, considering the events of the last 24 hours, all is calm. FIFa have done their damnedest to convince us we are powerless against their machinations. as Comey said, it doesn’t have to be this way.
There was one problem with the press conference given by FIFa spokesman Walter De Gregorio yesterday. Just about every word that tumbled from his lips was a lie.
He was Comical Wally, claiming the FBI were not at the gates of the Baur au Lac hotel. This was a good day for FIFa, he said. No, i t wasn’t. FIFa welcomes this process. No, it doesn’t. This is all part of FIFa’s reforms. are they kidding? FIFa has not made a single step towards reform unless backed into a corner.
On september 5, 2014, the report by lawyer michael Garcia into corruption within the organisation was submitted to FIFa. Two months later, on November 13, FIFa issued a summary of it which Garcia rejected as ‘ materially incomplete’ and ‘misrepresenting the facts and conclusions’. so, five days later, FIFa filed criminal charges against ‘persons unknown’ at the Office of the attorney General in switzerland.
THIs made FIFa the injured party, joining the OaG in fighting against corruption and money laundering. It allowed Blatter’s spokesman to claim yesterday that ‘FIFa started all this’.
Yet a CNN report dated November 13 stated that the FBI was continuing its investigation into FIFa, despite the arrival of the Garcia report. In other words, once it became clear that the Garcia report was not going to serve as the hoped-for cover-up, FIFa had no choice but to flip the case and make itself the wronged party.
Yet why the five-day delay? Why do you think? Why would the organisation need five days before inviting the OaG in to peruse all files and paperwork?
equally, if FIFa was in any way i nterested i n affecting change, Blatter would not be standing for his fifth term. He has presided over an organisation in which bribery and corruption has proved to be endemic. He has seen close friends and allies exposed as liars and cheats. His regime has been dogged by arrests, resignations, investigations and smokescreens; one of the men led away yesterday — and now banned from all football activity — was Jeffrey Webb, FIFa vice-president and head of its internal audit committee. Yet somehow Blatter sails on.
This FBI investigation has taken seven years to come to fruition, but no warrant for Blatter. maybe it is to come. One gets the feeling, though, FIFa’s president will be as difficult to nail as Osama bin Laden. Harder, perhaps, because it is not possible to take him out with a bullet.
The FBI must play Blatter at his own, sneaky, game. The United states department of justice is alleging ‘corruption that is rampant, systemic and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United states’. It has taken place on Blatter’s watch, but still he clings to power.
His colleagues ‘have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks’ — and yet the man at the top takes no responsibility. Indeed, tomorrow, he seeks votes.
and he will get them, by the sounds of it. UeFa officials met yesterday to discuss strategy for tomorrow’s presidential election. It was decided that if they believed the opposition candidate, Prince ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, had a chance of winning they would urge their members to vote for him; if they thought Blatter would win, they would campaign to postpone the election.
Last night, UeFa issued a statement calling for FIFa to postpone the vote. as Blatter is no doubt working off the same vox pops he is unlikely to pay heed. Yesterday, he released a statement that contained the mot juste on the day’s events. He described them as ‘unfortunate’.
HIs admirers say this is Blatter’s brilliance. By making FIFa one nation, one vote, he has rendered the West powerless. His base is in africa, in Central and south america, in parts of asia, too.
He courts the outliers, the disenfranchised, and they compare him to Nelson mandela, and with a straight face. Of course, some people thought saddam Hussein knew how to play the West as well. maybe Blatter has also got too clever for his own good. even so, if he is returned tomorrow it will
seem like a reverse for the FBI and the straight- shooters. A £100m bribe scandal and it hasn’t even touched him.
Yet. Hasn’t touched him yet. For now is the time to recall Comey’s words. It doesn’t have to be this way. And it doesn’t.
It is possible that, despite appearances, the FBI are right now listening to confessions or sifting through evidence that will, one day, make Blatter’s FIFA position untenable.
It is possible that there are brave men inside national associations, who are contemplating joint action, maybe even a boycott of a major tournament, to bring this crisis to a head. It is possible that FIFA’s brand is turning so toxic that sponsors will ultimately withdraw, taking with them the money that fuels the monster.
It may be that there is a hand waiting to knock on Blatter’s door, with the warrant that will bring an end to his rogue regime, his five- star North Korea, his evil empire. That is the hope. This is FIFA’s high noon, the FBI are Gary Cooper and the bad guys will surely get it in the end.