Blatter Wins!

The result was astonishingly close.

Ferrets And Sacks

In news not entirely unexpected, Sepp Blatter has been implicated in the latest corruption charges surrounding Fifa;

World football's governing body has been plunged deeper into crisis after its ethics committee widened a bribery investigation to include Sepp Blatter.

The Fifa president will appear in front of the ethics committee on Sunday with Mohamed bin Hammam, his Qatari rival, who is accused of offering cash bribes, and Jack Warner, the Concacaf president who has clung to a pivotal role at Fifa for 28 years despite a string of alleged scandals.

...this battle of the Fifa presidential election is turning out to be very messy indeed and Jack "the clown" Warner (corrupter-in-chief) has had further allegations made against him. I suspect though despite it all Blatter will win the election on Wednesday unopposed- such is democracy within Fifa, (I wonder if Cameron regrets this).

Yet this leads me on to a wider point. Yes, Fifa is a wonderful example of how unelected international bureaucracies are corrupt precisely because there are no checks and balances, but also at fault is the compliance, or apathy, of those it represents; note the silence since from UEFA over the scandal of the world body of football (UEFA President Platini is rumoured to be in line to replace Blatter)

And then we come onto the FA - run by unelected buffoons since 1863. An organisation who thinks that the "fit and proper persons test" is really just a measure of the size of your cheque book, that it's a good idea for England to play Germany in 1935 at White Hart Lane (home of 'Jewish' team Tottenham Hotspur) 2 months after the Nazis passed the Nuremberg laws, and who gave away control of our top diversion in 1993 to the Premier League to 'get one over' their political rivals; the Football league, and then could not control the monster it created. Added to this the FA has had a long and illustrious track record of applying different sanctions to clubs for the same crime depending on how rich that club is, for example recently; Luton and QPR were both found guilty of a breach of FA Football Agents Regulations, A1:

A. GENERAL
1 A Player or Club must not at any time use the services of, or seek to use the
services of, pay, or seek to pay, either directly or indirectly, an Unauthorised Agent
in relation to any Agency Activity.

Luton Town was bankrupt but admitted its guilt, QPR is owned by billionaires and lied to cover up its guilt, one was given a "smack on the wrist" fine and the other was deducted 10 points - no prizes for guessing which punishment went to which club.

The worst apathy though is the fans. We all know that the organisations of the FA, UEFA and FIFA stinks but the reaction that presides most of all is a shrug of the shoulders. If Blatter wins on Wednesday there will be some indignation but little else - ultimately he will be President because he can.

Your club run by crooks? Run by more crooks? And by even more crooks? Managed by fascists? As long as the team keeps winning, and you get your tickets for the World Cup in Brazil in 2018 then no-one cares. That's how they get away with it. And on a bigger scale that's how the EU gets away with it - apathy.

"I'll Do Anything To Survive"

For 11 years Sepp Blatter has been President of FIFA and he has not achieved that without dubious practices - his tenure has consistently been dogged by allegations of corruption. For almost a decade, in order to hold on to power at FIFA, Blatter has without question relied on Jack Warner to provide 35 votes that he controls in the Caribbean and North and Central America. In return Blatter has turned a blind eye to Warner being able to make himself, and his family, millionaires; plundering football in his region and FIFA itself.

However, Warner's controlled bloc of votes (including the USA) has come at an increasingly high price, which has lead to less than opaque corruption:

One of Fifa's most senior executives could profit by more than £10m from World Cup ticket sales in a scandal that will horrify supporters and raise fears that some senior officials ­ and individuals within sponsor companies ­ are exploiting their positions to milk the tournament for personal gain.

In a move that has caused outrage in Trinidad & Tobago, who face England in the group stage, the Caribbean nation's entire ticket allocation has been allocated to a travel agency owned by Jack Warner, a Fifa vice-president who is also the president of CONCACAF and a special advisor to the Trinidad & Tobago FA.

Now it seems that with an impeding FIFA Presidential election, and with further evidence of corruption swirling around FIFA, Blatter is dropping his ally, and also his Presidential opponent, in the smelly stuff in a very naked attempt at self preservation:

Fifa presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam and vice president Jack Warner have denied wrongdoing after Fifa opened disciplinary proceedings against them following bribery allegations.

Blatter is up to his eyeballs in this stuff and I don't believe that Jack Warner will let this go without a fight. Cue the popcorn.