DEAD MAN WALKING
Don’t worry, dear readers, he may be smiling for now, but Blatter’s still a ...
It was a speech shot through with irony for those willing to recognise it. Sepp Blatter said he was going to ‘fix’ FIFA. No, really, he did. And with a straight face, too.
‘You know who you are dealing with,’ he told the assembled delegates, by way of reassurance. And we all do, now. We’re dealing with crooks; or the friends of crooks; or the enablers of crooks. Slice it however you wish. Anyone who voted for Blatter and the status quo yesterday is an accessory to a regime mired in corruption, and therefore part of the problem.
So that’s quite a few branches of the famous football family, all told. Africa, Asia, Spain, Oceania, Russia, Central America, all part of the problem, all complicit in propping up an organisation in which bribery and corruption is endemic.
Death, too, given the tragedy unfolding throughout the building sites of Qatar. None of that mattered, though. they trotted down and voted for Blatter as if he were a figure of benevolence, smiling down on his people, bestowing them his gifts and wisdom.
Depressingly, he was the surest thing, despite it all. Even Britain’s election pollsters couldn’t have called yesterday’s vote wrong. Blatter by a landslide. First time out his share of the ballot was so great his opponent Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan withdrew rather than be humiliated on a second count.
Despite the optimism of Michel Platini, when the moment came, UEFA’s coalition of the good couldn’t scramble together many more than two dozen like minds from beyond its borders.
those numbers must have felt like a crushing blow to the many who considered the dawn raids in Zurich on Wednesday harbingers of change. Now they know. Now they know what it will take to remove Blatter and his boys.
You thought they cared? they didn’t care. Football didn’t care. Not about the £6.5million South Africa paid for the 2010 World Cup, not about the travesty of the 2018 and 2022 votes, not about the resignations, not about the arrests, not about the bribes, not about the graves being dug i n the desert.
Blatter is propped up by close on 20 years of sweeteners and palm greasers, a network of executives who owe their five-star lifestyle in great part to his largesse. You think they lose sleep over this? Sure, some have got sloppy and had the FBI on their case, but the majority survive, ensconced in their suites and their first- class lounges.
Out they poured from the Zurich five-stars to vote for more of the same. More of the same scandals, more of the same frauds, more fake reformist pledges from the man who rules over all of it, yet pretends not to know what occurs on his watch.
the crapulous indulgence and creature comforts are not even the best of the action for the modern FIFA delegate. the sheer size of the fraud at the heart of the FBI investigation — £100m — shows what can be milked as an ally of Blatter. And so in they all trooped, to the booths to cast their vote for a fifth term of scandal and shame. Except there was no shame on these faces. there never is.
Blatter gave a little speech when the deed was done, talking of FIFA in nautical language. ‘We will bring i t back off shore,’ he said, presumably before the FBI get hold of i t. He didn’t tell his supporters that their secrets were safe with him, but this is always the underlying coda.
It’s business as usual, bribe fans. We know what happens from here. More brazen soundbites, more pious sermons as delegates attempt a warped rebranding of a vote for corruption as a blow struck against western imperialism.
Blatter carries Africa because he cares for Africa, it is said. that is the cover story, but it isn’t the full picture. What Blatter does is give African federations money. to build headquarters, training facilities, academies, the infrastructure of a model football nation.
What he doesn’t do is check where that money then goes. If it gets spent, if it doesn’t get spent. Who gets rich, who stays poor. So some is used for good and the rest — well, it’s not like Blatter is the type to start asking awkward questions.
SO, in Zambia for instance, FIFA’s Goal project built Football House for the f ederation, and t wo technical centres. the administrative building certainly went up, but the first technical centre is decrepit and deemed unacceptable for the national team, and the second never got off the ground. Do FIFA then ask why? Do they ask for their money to be returned; or can we presume the president got his return yesterday, popped into the ballot box beside 132 others?
Lance Armstrong, Jimmy Savile, FIFA, what a coincidence that some of the great villains of the 21st Century cloaked their empires in good works and charity. FIFA’s gifts to its member nations mean football is held hostage by a faux democracy. Blatter distributes his l argesse around the globe in exchange for the show we saw yesterday. He treats continents like rotten boroughs.
All the old diversions will be heard now. this is about England not getting the World Cup. this is about the major western powers wanting to rule. No, it isn’t. And, no, it never was. the candidate proposed by those wishing to reform FIFA was from Jordan, for heaven’s sake. He is a Muslim from a small country in the Middle East, not a traditional man of the west like David Gill.
So f orget specious rhetoric designed to pit hemispheres in battle. this is a simple fight against evil. Blatter and his cronies represent the darkness at the heart of modern sport. they represent its greed and venality, its vice and excess. It’s not like they go around killing people, it used to be said; but that was before they sent the World Cup to Qatar.
All eyes now turn to Berlin on June 5, when UEFA will decide their next move. Few believe they have the courage to pull out of the World Cup, but as revulsion grows maybe it i s about time they stopped treating this as a little disagreement over strategy. It’s bigger than that now. It’s war. And it’s time to pick a side. So if that means the l eading nations of Europe do not play f riendly matches against Spain while the loathsome Blatter apologists are in charge, so be it.
the continent can live without Russia, too.
Maybe it is also time for the FA and others to review outreach programmes in Blatter strongholds. Not by punishing some kid in a village in Lesotho who needs kit and a football, but maybe by distancing their organisations from the Blatter enablers.
We cannot let this travesty occur and then go back to the way things were with a resigned shrug. We knew Blatter was going to be hard to beat, but he always will be if there is never a consequence for those who keep him in place.
Spain will need fixtures in the coming year. Russia will need friendlies in the build-up to 2018. It’s time to make them think about what they stand for.
Yet Scotland will still play host to Qatar at Easter Road next week. Just saying.