Tipping point for ‘The Fifa’

Unlike King Canute of Denmark, Blatter seemed genuinely stunned and dismayed that the heavens, earth and sea—or at least the journalists present—failed to do his bidding.

“Listen gentlemen, I accepted to have a press conference with you, alone here,” said Blatter, “I respect you, please respect me and the procedure of the press conference.

“Don’t intervene, we are not in a bazaar here, and we are in the FIFA House, in front of a very important FIFA Congress.”

During Blatter’s press conference, he refused to countenance that FIFA was an organization in crisis-mode and beset by corruption. He happily conceded that there were “devils in football” though.

Suspended FIFA Vice-President and CONCACAF President Jack Warner would not be too offended. He has been called much worse.

Pandemonium

In one of Zurich’s plush hotel suites, the Trinidad and Tobago MP tried to pass himself off as a reformist. He waved supposedly incriminating documents at media cameras as though he were a modern day Martin Luther with the “95 Theses”.

“Sepp Blatter must be stopped,” he said.

If Warner—who is suspended on corruption charges—is the solution, one would be forgiven for wondering what the question was in the first place.As the King Canute and Don Quixote impersonators rail at each other, the world looks on aghast at the state of what both men refer to as “The FIFA”.

In Blatter and Warner’s wake is pandemonium.

CONCACAF’s newly appointed temporary President Lisle Austin’s first public utterance was to demand a public explanation from the Confederation’s General Secretary Chuck Blazer for having the temerity to order an investigation into complaints of corruption against Warner without first requesting Warner’s permission to do so.

Austin, a Barbados native, gave Blazer 48 hours to declare “on what authority he appeared to unilaterally hire the law firm Collins and Collins to conduct investigations into allegations of misconduct by members of CONCACAF”.

The allegations swirl

Blazer, who was once described by a New York judge as “without credibility”, is not without a walk-in closet stuffed with skeletons too. And, Austin’s claim that the American travelled to Zurich with five “non elected members of CONCACAF to represent the Confederation” raises doubts as the motives of his move against his old chum, Warner.

FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke tried to explain away an email that suggested Qatar “bought” the right to host the 2022 World Cup. By “bought”, Valcke offered, he really meant that they ran an irresistible bid with an expansive budget.

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President Mohamed Bin Hammam, who is suspended along with Warner and two Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials for allegedly trying to buy votes from 25 Caribbean islands with US$40,000 each, revealed that he will fight his suspension. The evidence against the Qatari includes sworn affidavits, text messages and photographs.

Last week, Bin Hammam reported Blatter to the FIFA Executive Committee for not passing on knowledge of his “misdeeds” to the Ethics Committee. Blatter said that was because Bin Hammam’s bribery had not yet occurred. Bin Hammam and Warner retorted that it still hasn’t happened.

It is enough to make your head spin.

Platini for President?

The situation has deteriorated to the extent that UEFA President and former France football legend Michel Platini is starting to look more and more like global leadership material merely for not being photographed in a room with brown envelopes flush with cash or handing out US$1 million cheques as though they were lunch vouchers.

Platini’s UEFA charged fans between US$290 and $495 for tickets to the Champions League final at London’s Wembley Stadium last Saturday while, last year, the Frenchman was widely assumed to have voted for Qatar and publicly supported the notion of a "Gulf World Cup" and then complained that the conditions there were too oppressively hot for fans. He is considered a shoo-in for the FIFA presidency in four years time and hinted to CNN that he might even accept the post now if it were handed over on a platter.

Platini echoed FIFA’s unique stance on loyalty as he insisted that he supports Blatter unreservedly but only if he does not turn out to be corrupt. Platini, it seems, just doesn’t know if all that stuff in the press is true, despite being a member of the FIFA Executive Committee for the past nine years.

“Crisis, what is a crisis?”

In the midst of the chaos, Blatter chided journalists on being so presumptuous as to demand straight answers on “The FIFA” and insisted on “respect”.

“I am the president,” said Blatter, as he glared across the room. “I am only here to talk about the president.”

He poured scorn over any suggestion that world governments might unseat him—a suggestion raised by campaign group ChangeFifa, which is spearheaded by British Conservative MP Damian Collins.

“If governments try to intervene in our organisation then something is wrong,” said Blatter. “I think FIFA is strong enough to deal with the problems inside FIFA.”

Embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi might have choked back his emotion were he watching. In fact, there might be much in common with the House of FIFA and the crumbling dictatorships of North Africa and the Middle East.

Like in Egypt, the social media has warmed to the theme. On May 30, the second most popular trend on Twitter was “BlatterOut”. “FIFASpring” might be gaining momentum.

Regardless, Blatter intends to be returned to the FIFA throne unopposed on June 1.

"Crisis, what is a crisis?” asked Blatter, rhetorically. “Football is not in a crisis. We are not in a crisis, only in some difficulties.”

By all indications, though, the tide is still rising.