The ‘captain’ of a rotten vessel

So Sepp has done it again. The President of Fifa has managed to secure another four years in charge after one of the most surprising election results in history. The withdrawal of Bin Hamman, currently fighting allegations of corruption, had left Blatter as the lone candidate for the role – even the incompetent Swiss buffoon proved he could not fail to emerge victorious in a presidential race of one.

Despite absenteeism, in which 17 valiant Football Associations, including our own, declined to partake in the farce, Blatter emerged with 186 votes- a thin veneer of legitimacy for the rotting core of football’s governing body.

Before his shock victory, Blatter skipped over trivial matters, such as the need for investigation and reform, instead hiding behind a nautical analogy – comparing Fifa to a ship in ‘troubled waters’ yet declaring himself the ‘captain’ to lead it back to the ‘right route’. Yet this ‘ship’ didn’t just arrive in the storm on its own accord, placed among the waves by the hand of God – surely we must look to the current captain, who has led the vessel into the tempest of corruption, scandal and disgrace? That would be –wait- Mr Blatter himself.

In recent years, Fifa has become a virtual state unto itself- and what a state it is. Sponsorship, from the numerous conglomerate superpowers (whom Blatter describes as his ‘football family’) has become the ultimate pursuit, as Fifa spend more time whoring out the ‘beautiful game’ to corporate partners than actually improving it.

Operating above the rule of each national football association, Fifa has spectacular scope to implement its schemes for world domination, rigidly enforcing its strict marketing and advertising laws, while consigning football to the dark-ages by blocking the latest drive for video technology – presumably because the goal-line devices are made by some company not on the list of ‘approved’ sponsors.

This latest addition, a farcical election with a pre-determined winner and no alternative candidate, in what is essentially a one-party state, complete the stark image of a sporting tyrant. Purely for statistics sake, the length of Blatter’s reign would place him just behind Pakalitha Mosisili, of sub-Saharan semi-state Lesotho in the list on longest serving dictators.

On that subject, recent allegations allege that Qatar ‘bought’ the 2022 World Cup. I can believe that. The decision to send the largest global sporting competition to an autocratic strand of desert in the Middle East, a country that is about as renowned for its football as McDonald’s is for haute cuisine, can only be justified by the presence of a substantial brown envelope overflowing with cash.

At the time I was aghast at the decision to chose Qatar. Forty-degree dry heat and sky high humidity are evidently less-than-ideal conditions for ninety minutes of high-intensity football; surely even Fifa would recognise this. The solution? Qatar was to build state-of-art facilities with underground cooling system and air-conditioning at the cost of billions of pounds to facilitate the ‘greatest show on earth’ in a suitably cold and fresh environment.. Problem solved, says Blatter. No Sepp.

The solution is to play the tournament in a country so naturally endowed with ‘cold’ and ‘freshness’ even in the height of so-called ‘summer’ it would be unwise to venture outside without at least one jumper, and maybe gloves. A country, that despite 55 years of floundering, still passionately considers itself among the ‘favourites’ for each and every World Cup, swathing itself in the flag of St George, living and breathing football until that inevitable penalty kick breaks the nation’s heart once more.

And yet, this logical conclusion was inexplicably overlooked. As it transpires, that decision was lubricated with corruption; rather than revulsion, it almost a relief to hear that the Fifa delegates were merely dishonest rather than utterly deranged.

“It’s a problem. A big problem. Is it the worst football scandal? I think so. What’s happened is terrible and just crazy. This sport is more important than religion, so the consequences of all this will be terrible.”

These are Blatter’s own words. He was describing the Calciopoli scandal that engulfed Italy in 2006, but they are remarkably fitting. Blatter publicly denounced the ‘slow’ reaction of the Italian Football Federation to their crisis, and was so disappointed by an Italian victory in Berlin that he branded it an undeserved ‘tragedy’ arguing that Italy had reached the final using underhand tactics. An unmerited victor tainted by unscrupulous behaviour? Imagine. So unable to stomach even the faintest trace of corruption and dishonesty, he appointed the head of UEFA to award the World Cup trophy to the victorious Italian team, rather than risk taking to the field himself, proving himself a man of honour and integrity. With Fifa all-at-sea amid allegations of bribery, hypocrisy can now be added to petulance, contempt and condescension on Blatter’s charge sheet. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Mr Blatter. Even if you think your house is a ship.

But the withdrawal of Bin Hamman, and the consequent re-election of Blatter has not cured Fifa – to continue his own maritime analogy, it represents the tip of the iceberg, and the governing body are dangerously close to blindly sailing into a head-on collision. Fifa needs to clear up its act. The football world needs its own equivalent of the Arab Spring, a period of sweeping change and fresh blood. The real concern is the lack of viable alternatives to Blatter – Platini, widely tipped to succeed the current President, is considered Blatter’s protégé, and risks being tarred with the same brush. Escape while there is still time, Michel. Lead the mutiny before this ‘scandal’ drags you into its murky depths.