Apropos nothing...

Here's Sepp!

Back for more corruption-based fun soon, folks! 

FIFA saga continues...

Is there no end to this?

This whole FIFA thing is getting like a game of one-upmanship in terms of who can be the most corrupt. Latest news is that the Irish FA accepted a bribe (apparently) directly from Sepp Blatter himself of 5 million Euros not to take FIFA to court over that play-off match...you know the one, Thierry Henry clearly prevents an Irish goal with the palm of his hand and then goes on to score for France, hence putting them through to the finals etc. etc.

The head of the Irish FA (if it was he) was probably quite pragmatic to accept; they mightn't've won the penalty shoot-out that would have been the normal denouement to that play-off match anyway. They mightn't even have won the court case against FIFA had it gone ahead as Blatter would probably have found some way to corrupt that too.

Anyway, enough of this for now I think. When Blatter's actually arrested I'll probably get back into it but for the moment it's really only filling in blanks.

Jack Warner

"Promises to reveal everything he knows".

This is more FIFA stuff of course. Now, given that Jack Warner is already implicated in god knows what (bribes for votes for and from anyone and everyone, dodgy ticket sales, doing dodgy deals with Chuck Blazer, etc.), the mind boggles as to what he's about to come out with.

He's saying that he can link FIFA to the outcome of the Trinidad & Tobago elections, which is...let's say...interesting.

Chuck Blazer!

Throw Jacket! Castaside Cardigan! Fling Overcoat!

Ah, I know it'll've been said a million times before, but Chuck Blazer really does have a great name, doesn't he? "The Adventures of Chuck Blazer" would be a great name for a young adult fiction novel.

Anyway, the Chuck Blazer under discussion here (longtime FIFA executive committee member and the one whose testimony much of the FBI investigation hinges) is now apparently blowing his whistle very loud and very long. Here we go:

"I agreed with other persons in or around 1992 to facilitate the acceptance of a bribe in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup"

"in and around 1993 and continuing through the early 2000s, I and others agreed to take bribes and kickbacks in conjunction with the broadcast and other rights to the 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003 [CONCACAF] Gold Cups" (the Gold Cup being the CONCACAF equivalent of the Euros, or Africa Cup of Nations)

and

"I and others on the FIFA Executive Committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with the selection of South Africa as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup"

and it's still ongoing.

If he's not bullshitting (why would he, this is a plea bargain) it looks even worse than I'd thought. I mean, I've always assumed that financial chicanery has been going on within FIFA and the IOC to a certain degree since the year dot, but this is making it look about as bad as it could be.


Edit: this Chuck Blazer blog must be some sort of elaborate hoax, mustn't it?

It's a Western Conspiracy!

Further to Sepp's resignation...

...which apparently means "carry on as usual until we can be arsed to elect someone else", Vladimir Putin has condemned the whole FIFA investigation as a "Western Conspiracy". I wonder why that could be? Nothing to do with the 2018 World Cup being fraudulently awarded to Russia then?

Vladimir Putin and Sepp Blatter are apparently good friends.

Sepp Blatter is under investigation by both the FBI and the Swiss authorities for various financial misdemeanours and I'm still sure that he's going to get "done" for something imminently.  I'm also sure that the Qatar World Cup will now not go ahead.

As for the 2018 World Cup, who knows? The Russian federation are almost certainly going to be found to be involved in voting shenanigans, but Putin will probably manage to ensure it goes ahead anyway.

Blatter resigns

Of course, it is for purely altruistic reasons.

Course it is Sepp. You've always had the best interests of FIFA, and football in general, in mind.

I wouldn't be surprised if he (not another of his deputies or stooges) is directly apprehended for fraud or misappropriation of funds within the week.

Blatter!

To the surprise of absolutely no-one,

Sepp Blatter has got his fifth term.  As I've mentioned, that's an irrelevance really.  He may well be the head of FIFA but I reckon that FIFA will have largely been dismantled by this time next week, in which case being the head of FIFA won't count for much.

I do hope the fallout is spectacular.

FIFA fun...

...just gets better and better, doesn't it?

As far as I know, everybody who has an interest in football (except Vladimir Putin) is aware that FIFA has long been a corrupt organisation.  It's just assumed knowledge, isn't it?  The only annoying thing is that Sepp Blatter was not one of those arrested, when it's clear that he's the worst of the lot of them.

Anyway, that's not the funny thing.  The funny thing is that Blatter still intends to go ahead with the FIFA presidency vote tomorrow.  OK, these "votes" are farcical anyway because Blatter's bribed everyone to vote for him ahead of time and knows he's going to win, but this one?  Who's going to be there to vote?  UEFA are planning on boycotting, which can only further disvalue it.

Mind you, in FIFA-world, things happen differently.  I reckon the vote will go ahead, Blatter will (of course) be elected for a fifth term and he'll try to claim the credit for cleaning up FIFA.

Or, he'll do that util someone rats him out - and that will happen - and the whole fucking corrupt house of cards comes tumbling down.  He'll never see prison of course; he's 80-odd already and appeals, etc., will surely drag out until he drops dead.  And I suspect many of the billions he's taken from the game over the years are safely stashed away somewhere untraceable.  But at least he'll be gone.

I mean, Qatar, for fuck's sake.