What was meant to go down as just another meeting of football’s most powerful men, may instead go down as an historic turning point for the global game.
The arrest of six top FIFA officials at the Baur au Lac Hotel in Switzerland has shaken FIFA to its core. If this is not a wake up call, then nothing is.
By arresting six of the highest profile individuals in the game and announcing an intention to charge a further eight, the Swiss authorities, backed by the US Department of Justice, have signalled that the jig is well and truly over.
The Department of Justice intends to press charges against the 14 men once they are extradited for crimes relating to money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud. Such charges are befitting of mafia bosses, not football executives.
Football is worth too much to too many people to see the game mismanaged in this way. Enough is enough.
The men arrested included FIFA vice president Jeffrey Webb, Uruguay’s Eugenio Figueredo, Costa Rica’s Eduardo Li, Trinidad & Tobago’s Jack Warner and Brazil’s José Maria Marin with charges against fellow FIFA executives Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, Rafael Esquivel, and Nicolás Leoz. The Department of Justice also announced its plans to lay charges against sports marketing executives Alejandro Burzaco, Aaron Davidson and Hugo and Mariano Jinkis. Authorities also charged José Margulies as an intermediary who facilitated illegal payments. The charges come following an extensive investigation by the FBI covering more than two decades.
Throughout the scandals that have engulfed FIFA following the controversial World Cup voting in 2010, which saw Russia and Qatar awarded the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, president Sepp Blatter has consistently denied that FIFA had a problem with corruption. The few bad eggs, like former vice president Mohammad bin Hammam, were being weeded out of the organisation as Blatter himself took control of the resurrection of FIFA’s image.
But even FIFA’s commissioned ethics report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, an exercise specifically designed to bring about greater transparency, was conducted in a secretive and highly unsatisfactory manner. The report’s author, Michael Garcia, was scathing in his assessment of FIFA’s handling of his report.
Through all the fracas, FIFA’s most important man, president Blatter, has persevered. On Wednesday morning he once again avoided direct implication in the operation. However this time, the timing could not be worse as he seeks re-election as FIFA president for a fifth term at a vote in FIFA’s general assembly on Friday. If these extraordinary events cannot open his eyes to the systemic corruption in the organisation over which he presides, then nothing will.
But whether or not Blatter chooses to run for another term is still up to him. Many still think that Blatter will win the election should he choose to run.
Still, it must have sent an awful shock to other FIFA executives to see their colleagues hauled away as suspected criminals. The question now is whether they try to follow Prince Ali of Jordan’s path of reform or keep their faith in Blatter’s ability to steer the sinking ship? Opportunities to safely jump said ship are fast running out.
Fans of the game want Blatter to step down and the reforming Prince Ali to take the reigns. This is rightly so. The game deserves better than this. Blatter’s achievements as FIFA president have been immense and will not be long forgotten. But his time as FIFA president must surely come to an end now for the sake of FIFA, for the sake of the game and for the sake of his own legacy.
What was made most clear by the events at the Baur au Lac Hotel was just how deeply corruption was running through FIFA’s upper echelon. Whether or not Blatter himself is implicated is beside the point. He presides over an increasingly farcical organisation. New leadership is essential if FIFA is ever going to reform its tattered reputation.
So thank you Sepp, for your long and dutiful service to the game but it will take younger, more energetic hands to clean the awful mess you leave behind.
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