It was noted British journalist Andrew Jennings who compared FIFA to an organised crime family. Indeed, he wrote a book entitled “Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family”.
Now, you’d think a title like that would have the libel law suits lining up like a wall defending a Cristiano Ronaldo set piece. But none have been made public. Andrew Jennings says, “In Omerta, I show that the leadership of FIFA tick all the boxes defining an Organised Crime Syndicate.”
This is the organisation that made the 2022 World Cup hosting rights a bidding war where there could only be one winner – the petro-dollars cashed-up Qatar. This is the organisation where executive committee members lined their pockets in exchange for the biggest sporting event in the world.
It has been happening for decades but it became truly apparent to Australians on December 2, 2010, when Blatter pulled the name of Qatar out of one envelope, presumably while pocketing another one thickened with wads of cash.
In the parlance of those old mafia movies, if you want to kill off the octopus, you’ve got to go for the head, not the tentacles. A few days ago, it appeared that chance had been lost, as Blatter was re-elected to the head of FIFA for another four-year term. But as Jennings himself said, Blatter was a “dead man walking”.
With seven top FIFA officials arrested, and more to come, the persuasive powers of the Swiss authorities and the American Federal Bureau of Investigation needed to only ‘turn’ one of those officials. Blatter need not have taken one cent in bribes but if he knew it was going on and turned a blind eye to it, that was more than enough to make him complicit in the act.
However, before we start to sing ‘Ding dong, the witch is dead’, there are some sobering facts to consider. Blatter was re-elected only days ago, and garnered votes from – presumably – Japan and South Korea, if those nations followed the wishes of the Asian Confederation.
Japan and South Korea were both bidders for the 2022 World Cup, and both suffered in the same manner as Australia (and the USA) when the deeply flawed bid was awarded to Qatar. Yet the Blatter sphere of influence was so great that nations that should be sworn enemies of the regime lined up to vote for him. That sphere of influence won’t disappear just because he has stepped down.
Consider also that Asia had a ‘home’ candidate in the election – Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, a FIFA vice-president who has managed to uphold a clean reputation within the seething cauldron. Yet Asia is now run by Blatter loyalists and not even the lure of a president who resides in their own confederation was enough to sway the decision-makers.
Finally, unless the FBI manages to slap handcuffs on Blatter soon, there is nothing stopping him from standing again in a re-organised election. Given the manner in which FIFA distributes profits from major events (yes, folks, FIFA is a ‘non-profit organisation’, which means they’re the same as The Salvos or the Cancer Council), they effectively buy votes from countries as disparate as Montserrat and Bhutan.
Meanwhile, a tip of the hat to Football Federation Australia. Yes, there are questions that need to be asked still about that World Cup bid. It needs to be assessed whether the bidding team decided to ‘play the game’ when it came to some of the allocation of taxpayer funds to consultants.
There needs to be a thorough and open investigation on where the half a million dollars earmarked for a Caribbean centre of excellence finally ended up. All that needs to be made public. But at the very least, it was gratifying to see that Australia did not line up like lemmings when it came to voting for the FIFA presidency.
It was a small stand, but it at least was a stand. And it was made with considerable potential risk to the current Asian champions.
A small slice of dignity in a thoroughly undignified congress. Sepp Blatter’s war cry “Go, FIFA, go!” looked so incredibly asinine a few days ago. ‘Gone, Blatter, gone’ sounds a lot better a week later.
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