In my original commentary, “FIFA: Soccer’s Federation of Imbeciles, Fraudsters & Autocrats,” May 29, 2015, I stated my belief that Blatter is the prime suspect in the FBI’s ongoing investigation.
But it’s standing operating procedure in major bribery/racketeering/corruption cases for agents to arrest the capos and consigliere, and get them to sing like canaries for plea deals, to bolster their case against the boss. No doubt Blatter knew or was duly informed of this procedure after Swiss authorities arrested fourteen of his underlings last Wednesday.
This is why I also believe he intended to resign even before Friday’s election at the FIFA Congress. Only his ego is such that he wanted the perch of another re-election coronation to make his resignation appear more magnanimous than mandatory.
Alas, this about-face only makes African and Caribbean delegates, his most compromised supporters, look like even bigger imbeciles than I intimated. After all, they not only voted for him en bloc, but each then waited his turn to kiss Blatter’s brass ring.
Now comes this:
Sepp Blatter announced Tuesday that he is stepping down as FIFA president as the world’s soccer governing body continues to be embroiled in scandal and controversy.
‘I appreciate and love FIFA more than anything else, and I only want to do the best for football and for FIFA,’ Blatter said during a press conference.
Blatter said a new president will be elected ‘as soon as possible.’
(Huffington Post, June 2, 2015)
All that’s left to make complete fools of his willful supporters is for Blatter to accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s overture to flee into exile. Perhaps he can take up residence in one of the many unoccupied luxury condos in Sochi — that white elephant of a city Putin built to host his 2014 Winter Olympics.
Incidentally, this resignation and forthcoming trials should mean that Putin won’t even get to show off all of the facilities he’s building now for his 2018 World Cup, the hosting rights to which he won via FIFA’s standard operating procedure during Blatter’s reign: bribery.
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