Blatter problems

In the wake of yet another serious corruption crisis, FIFA has re-elected as its president a Sepp Blatter :no:…whose name sounds like a serious urinary tract infection (I’m sorry sir, but you’ve got a Sepp Blatter, stay away from brown envelopes and women half your age for a few months :))).

To those Irish who don’t know much about “soccer”, this is a game that involves moving little brown envelopes stuffed with cash around the world without getting caught. The winner is the person who avoids doing twenty years to life in a US supermax prison ;D.

Seriously tho, we’ve been here before…and before…and before that…I recall a few years ago when the last crisis struck Blatter said that this would be his last term, he fought off the critics, etc. The guy isn’t going to go quietly. He’ll only go when he’s dragged off kicking and screaming. And keep in mind the standard procedure for the Fed’s is to arrest their way up the pyramid, start off with the minions of Mr Big, sweat’em down and see if they’ll testify to save their skin, then arrest the head honcho. So Blatter might well be arrested at some point in the future, which would not be good for the game.

Clearly we can’t wait for that hence why I would urge action now. Firstly, I’d call for a boycott of all of FIFA’s sponsors. Admittedly, given that I don’t have VISA credit card, nor that I use any of the other FIFA sponsors products much (the only think I’d use Bud for would be cleaning the loo!), its going to be easy for me to do that. But any sort of pressure like this will quickly bring pressure to bear on FIFA.

Secondly, I’d suggest that UEFA should make clear that they will not be participating in either the 2018 or 2022 world cup’s unless the bidding process is reopened. Instead a tournament will be held in Europe at the same time as the world cup, with qualifying starting for that instead of the FIFA world cup in the next few weeks. Select countries such as Brazil, Argentina, the US, Australia, Cameron, etc. will be invited to participate.

Such a move would render the TV rights to the world cup’s worthless. Nobody’s going to watch Boliva v’s Egypt when they can catch Germany v’s Italy on the other channel. FIFA would be driven to the brink of bankruptcy by such a policy and quickly brought to heel. However my fear is that instead we’ll get what always happens in these sort of situations, more kicking the can down the road and no serious action.