The last time I was this happy over something the U.S. did on the international stage, it was when Seal Team Six killed Osama bin Laden. Last week’s indictments of top FIFA executives in New York and subsequent arrests in Switzerland culminated in the shocking news this afternoon when FIFA oligarch Sepp Blatter abruptly resigned his position as that organization’s president. This comes only four days after he won another four-year term in an election that was widely decried as a sham. As Fort Worth Weekly’s soccer person, I do intend to blog a preview piece for the Women’s World Cup later this week, but this amazing development deserves its own post. Here are my answers to all your questions that I just made up for you.
How corrupt is FIFA?
Click on my blog post from 2011 for a run-down of recent events. John Oliver has a better take on history.
How badass is Loretta Lynch?
The U.S. Attorney General headed up the investigation into FIFA years before she was nominated to the post. In fact, ESPN’s Lester Munson went so far as to suggest that Lynch got the nomination on the strength of this soccer investigation. Now, barely a month into her job, she has the whole world’s attention. The soccer world had come to accept FIFA’s corruption as an unfortunate circumstance that nobody could do anything about. Lynch did something about it, and the U.S. government is one of the few entities big enough to take on FIFA and win. Doing so has made America popular with players and pundits all over the world. Even America-hating Diego Maradona was cheering. Unless this investigation goes completely sideways, a new Democratic president in 2016 will be under pressure to keep Lynch on.
What prompted Blatter’s resignation?
Perhaps he finally realized that large sectors of the Western world hated his guts. More likely, it was the revelation earlier this morning that his Number Two guy Jérôme Valcke (Belgium) had been CC’d on a letter that approved a $10 million bribe to then-CONCACAF president Jack Warner. (Valcke has since canceled his trip to Canada to attend the Women’s World Cup, in a wholly unsurprising piece of news.) There’s also the high likelihood that one of the arrested officials would act to save themselves and turn state’s evidence, much as former USA honcho Chuck Blazer did, which started this whole thing. Blatter has a cockroach-like ability to survive and a robust sense of denial, but presumably he can read the handwriting on the wall.
How serious was the talk of America and Europe going off and forming their own soccer championship?
It could have worked. Not all of Europe would have defected (Vladimir Putin made that clear), but had these countries come up with a viable rogue organization, they would have peeled off Mexico, Japan, South Korea, and Australia at a bare minimum. That bloc of nations is a huge chunk of worldwide soccer viewership, and generates an even bigger piece of worldwide soccer revenue. If the rogue alliance could have snagged Argentina and/or Brazil as well, it would have dealt FIFA a fatal blow. The winner of such a tournament could have legitimately claimed to be the best in the world. Blatter’s resignation keeps everybody under one roof, which is probably for the best.
How sorry is Blatter that he tangled with America?
Very, most likely. The irony is that just when the corrupt practices were taking root in the 1990s, he was assiduously cultivating American money in the form of corporate sponsorships and TV networks. USA hosting World Cup 1994 was likely down to his influence. The trouble is, all this activity on our shores led to his underlings committing financial crimes on American soil and using American banks, which brought them under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department and the IRS. In a way, he sowed the seeds of his own destruction.
How many other countries are investigating FIFA now?
Simultaneous with the arrests, Switzerland announced a probe specifically into the 2010 bidding process that won Russia World Cup 2018 and Qatar World Cup 2022. This has the potential to be the most far-reaching one, since FIFA’s headquarters are located in Switzerland. The former head of Brazil’s soccer federation was one of the arrested, and the current head fled Switzerland before the vote so he could return to his native country, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. However, now Brazil is investigating him, so that may be delaying the inevitable. And England‘s biggest banks are investigating FIFA’s doings in its borders as well.
What are the odds of Qatar actually staging that the World Cup seven years from now?
Not sure, but I’d say they’re dwindling.
How badly did the Qataris blow it?
When Russia and China had the Olympic spotlight on them, they at least said the right things and made a show of bringing their practices in line with the Western world. The Persian Gulf emirate didn’t even try. They continued to build their stadiums with legal slave labor, jailed foreign journalists who tried to report on working conditions, and despicably even refused to let their Nepalese laborers go home to attend funerals for the victims of that country’s recent earthquake. After winning the 2022 World Cup by claiming they could stage the tournament in the triple-digit heat, the Qataris threw in the towel and switched the tournament to winter, which would have not only forced the European soccer leagues to scramble their calendars but also have forced the Fox network (which owns that tourney’s U.S. TV rights) to divert resources from the NFL to cover soccer. Plus, the country has done nothing about its atrocious human rights record. If you ask for the world’s spotlight, your country had better be prepared to stand up under it.
What was the funniest piece of information to come out of the scandal?
The fact that Blazer kept a whole separate apartment in New York’s Trump Tower just for his cats.
What was the funniest reaction to the scandal?
Lots of competition for this honor, including this satirical video-game cover for FIFA 16, Chad Ochocinco lobbying for a vice-president spot in the new FIFA, and Keith Olbermann proclaiming Roger Goodell as the world’s new most loathsome sports executive. Still, I go for Jack Warner falling for an article The Onion, citing it as proof of his innocence.
Didn’t FIFA produce a movie about Sepp Blatter starring Tim Roth?
Yes. I didn’t see United Passions when it came out last year, but I trust the myriad people who did and said it was terrible. Now there’s plenty of material for a sequel.
Who will be the next president?
The early money is on Michel Platini (France), the president of FIFA’s European confederation and regarded as his country’s greatest-ever player before Zinédine Zidane. The Corsican challenged Blatter unsuccessfully for the presidency once before, has steadily criticized him since, and publicly called on him to step down when the news of the arrests broke. All these are in his favor, but let’s remember that he voted to hold World Cup 2022 in Qatar. The fact that his son was named CEO of a Qatari hospital company after the country won the vote should disqualify Platini. Prince Ali bin al-Hussein (Jordan) lost Friday’s vote to Blatter, though he garnered more votes than anyone figured he would before the arrests. He was backed the federations of England and USA, but those seem like “anybody but Sepp” votes. Prince Ali has been talking a good game, but we have yet to see radical ideas from him. Luís Figo (Portugal) was well-known as a player and also challenged Blatter, but he may be too young for the post. On the other hand, 73-year-old Senes Erzik (Turkey) is probably too old.
Who should be the next president?
I nominate Pierluigi Collina. Generally considered the greatest soccer referee in history (and nicknamed “Kojak” because of his unusual looks), the native of Bologna kept his nose clean amid the cesspool that was Italian soccer in his time. We need to vet his more recent career as head of the referees’ union in the Ukraine, but he knows the game, speaks several languages, and has a reputation for unimpeachable integrity. That’s what the sport needs most right now.
Does this mean world soccer will be clean from now on?
Let’s hope so.
Great analysis. Lots of info I didn’t know at all. Thank you.