The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is soccer’s international governing body – whose hallowed mission is to govern “For the Good of the Game.”
This is why the scandal that has it reeling these days reeks of such betrayal of trust.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has told an emergency meeting of football’s governing body he will not quit, amid growing political pressure over a corruption scandal.
Seven top FIFA officials were arrested in Zurich on Wednesday, among 14 people indicted by U.S. prosecutors.
UK PM David Cameron urged Mr. Blatter to resign but Russian President Vladimir Putin has backed him for a fifth term.
(BBC, May 28, 2015)
Let me hasten to disclose that I’m only a quadrennial fan of this purportedly “beautiful game.” Then again, we now know that FIFA is far more about dirty politics than wholesome soccer. Which is why I feel entirely qualified to comment.
Truth be told, the only time I ever bother to watch (mere snippets of) soccer matches is during the World Cup. Yet even I had read enough over the years about FIFA’s venal practices to react to breaking news of these arrests with informed insouciance. Or, to paraphrase Casablanca’s Captain Louis Renault: I was shocked, shocked to learn that bribery was going on there!
Hell, the only thing missing from the Swiss round up of the usual suspects was the prime suspect himself, Sepp Blatter.
Before news of these arrests, I suspect the only thing most people knew about FIFA is that it sanctioned the spectacle of Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup. Of course, this makes about as much sense as the IOC sanctioning the spectacle of Kuwait hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics. Clearly, the only reason for members doing so in both cases would be to “honor” the millions they took in bribes.
But frankly, the most interesting, though hardly surprising, aspect of this scandal is the way Putin inserted himself in the midst of it:
President Vladimir V. Putin sought to transform the burgeoning scandal over corruption in soccer’s international governing body into an extension of the confrontation between Russia and the West on Thursday, accusing the United States of global overreach…
Mr. Putin called the arrests of top FIFA officials in Zurich, Switzerland, on Wednesday ‘another blatant attempt by the United States to extend its jurisdiction to other states…’.
(New York Times, May 28, 2015)
The leader doth protest too much, methinks….
Meanwhile, just weeks ago, Blatter was taking autocratic pride of ownership in FIFA. In fact, so much so that, instead of making a case for his re-election to a fifth term as president, he declared that his “manifesto” of accomplishments over 17 years should make his re-election automatic.
Nevertheless, during his address to formally open FIFA’s congress today (ahead of tomorrow’s election), Blatter outacted Captain Renault himself. For he claimed to be utterly “shocked, shocked” to learn that so much bribery had taken place, for so many years, right under his nose.
Then, demonstrating the chutzpah for which he is so well known, Blatter insisted that nobody would be more dedicated to and capable of rooting out the corruption that has brought his organization into such disrepute than he.
Alas, nothing indicates how endemic that corruption has become quite like those who know FIFA best predicting that, despite what should be his fatally compromised and untenable position, he’ll be re-elected.
Blatter will convince the majority to vote for him… but he has already lost, FIFA has already lost.
(UEFA chief Michel Platini, BBC, May 28, 2015)
Indeed, I suspect even the imperious and impervious Blatter is sensible enough to realize that his leadership of FIFA is doomed – given that the only people coming to his defense are African kleptomaniacs and this increasingly paranoid, delusional and dangerous Russian dictator.
But you know what they say about birds of a feather…. And nothing binds them quite like their imperial sense of entitlement to presidencies … for life.
NOTE: The venality of FIFA executives is surpassed only by the hypocrisy of corporate sponsors — who dropped Tiger Woods just because he had extramarital affairs with over 15 women, but are standing by Blatter even though he concocted a bribery scheme that scored over $150 million.
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Thursday, at 8:44 p.m.
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