- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
If Sepp Blatter believes for one second that retaining the FIFA presidency is a ringing endorsement of his 17-year watch, he is arrogant, ignorant, and delusional.
Overnight in Zurich, Blatter didn’t receive two thirds of the 206 countries that voted in this farcically-timed election in the light of widespread corruption.
Blatter received 133 votes to Jordan’s Prince Ali’s 73, so it required a second round, but the 39-year-old Prince bailed out.
So the FIFA Congress handed the 79-year-old Blatter his fifth term in the chair.
The Congress was made up of six regions:
Africa (Caf), with 54 countries.
Europe (Uefa), wih 53.
Asia (Afc), with 46.
North and Central America (Concacaf),with 35.
Oceania ((Ofc), with 11.
And South America (Conmebol),with 10.
That’s 209 countries, but only 206 voted.
Before Blatter gets comfortable, there are three major upheavals looming, any one of which will see Blatter on his bike.
The Swiss and FBI prosecutors who have already struck with 14 arrests of senior FIFA officials, are poised to reopen the bidding processes that saw Russia awarded the 2018 World Cup, and Qatar the 2022 tournament.
Both voting procedures were on the nose.
T hot favourite to host the 2018 Cup, England, only received two of 22 votes, and went out in the first ballot.
Russia with 13 votes won the bid, from Spain and Portugal’s seven votes, to the Netherlands’ and Spain’s two.
For the 2022 Cup, Australia with just one vote in 22 went out in the first round, Japan with two votes went out in the second, and South Korea with five votes went out in the third.
That left just two countries, with Qatar gaining 14 votes to USA’s eight.
If the Swiss prosecutors find corruption in the decision process that’s been widely alleged since March 2009, then Blatter will go.
The second upheavel will be if UEFA decide to withdraw from FIFA, and go it alone.
UEFA has been led since 2007 by Frenchman Michel Pltini, widely-rated one of the greatest footballers of all time.
If UEFA go it alone FIFA has had it, so too the World Cup, with 13 of the world’s top-ranked 20 countries in their midst.
Germany’s ranked one, Belgium (3), Netherlands (6), Portugal (7), Switzerland (9), Spain (10), France (11), Romania (12), Italy (13), England (14), Croatia (17), Czech Republic (18), and Slovakia (19).
The third looming upheavel are the major sponsors – Coca Cola, Visa, Budweiser, Hyundai/Kia Motors, plus Adidas and Nike, to name a few.
Any one or more withdrawing their sponsorship will be financially crippling for FIFA. Can you imagine a potential new sponsor surfacing when so many VIPs around the world want to see Blatter’s back?
No way.
So don’t get too comfortable, Sepp.