Didn't see that coming

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Sepp Blatter to resign as Fifa president after 17 years in role

Now that the head of the hydra has voluntarily decided to step down, despite having been re-fortified in his position just a weekend ago, the question is naturally what lessons we could draw from this whole affair.

Firstly, as Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here". Blatter's argument that he totally didn't know of the corruption that had been going on just under his nose for years, is as blatant a lie as it could possibly be - absurd even. He was either part of the whole scheme, or he just preferred to look the other way all the time - or even worse, he was so staggeringly stupid that a fried vegetable would've looked like Machiavelli next to him. I'm not buying the latter even for a minute.

Then, we shouldn't ignore the fact that Blatter often likes to take credit for the structure he has created in FIFA, for turning a mere NGO into a global enterprise spanning more than 200 countries and controlling the most popular and most profitable global sport in the world - but that also has its downside, namely that it means he has also put all the flaws in place, and prerequisites for fraud and corruption on a global scale. So there's no way he could pretend to be innocent even in this more general aspect, either.

And last but not least important, bribe taking is not just one man's malfeasance. Blatter may've not taken graft himself, but there's no way he could've been unaware of all the nice "money transfers" that were taking place under the table. So, even if he's resigning (although not stepping down until December or sometime next year anyway), that still won't solve anything - it'll only vent some of the pressure that had been building up lately. No, the whole world body of football will have to be cleansed from root to branch, otherwise there'll be more Blatters in the future, and the game will suffer. In fact, chances are that without Blatter's oversight things could get even worse, and corruption could spiral out of control if FIFA doesn't act swiftly to clean its Augean stables.

If anything, there's one lesson I've personally learned from the whole affair: that John Oliver wields waaay more influence than anyone had expected! ;-)

Comments

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Now John will have to drink Bud Light with Lime and pretend that it is champagne! He promised!

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

He's going to step down, but nof before December? WTF is this shit!?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well, someone has to shred the documents...

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

So what happens now... England gets the world cup in 2018 from under Russia's nose, and USA gets the world cup in 2022 from under Qatar's nose... and everyone is happy?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

For years he was dismissing all the scandals with a smirk, and swiping them under the rug, although FIFA was reeking of corruption in every corner. Well, no more. The heap of bullshit has become so huge, it finally claimed his head. Good riddance.

Curiously, it took an informer like Blazer to provide the game-changer. Similarly to the way Snowden ultimately contributed to Obama scaling down the Patriot Act eavesdropping.

I'm hearing Platini is going to run for Blatter's position. If so, then I don't see much of a change coming. It'd be like substituting one fraudster with another. Platini was so opposed to Blatter on this latest election, not because he's clean like a drop of dew, or out of some principle - he was just butthurt that Blatter had been undermining UEFA for a time, and giving priority to Third World countries at the expense of Europe - and no one likes having part of their pie stolen from them. Well, now Platini could right that wrong and take back some of the pie.

Those are billions of dollars that we're talking about, after all. 5 billion (http://www.businessinsider.com/fifa-brazil-world-cup-revenue-2015-3) of revenue from a World Cup, actually.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

That's why I've largely moved to rugby - and not only in terms of the sport I practice, but also the sport I attend and watch on the TV. Football has become way too much like a business rather than a game. There's too much at stake in terms of money and influence, and politics.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Well, those are, kind sir, MOST excellent points.

And,

RUGBY BEEFCAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Chris Robshaw

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Rugby. That game, where one man tries to shove the heads of two men up the butts of three other men.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

It may be different in SA and Aus, but I was permanently put off Rugby as a schoolboy: being up to my armpits in freezing mud on a Winter's morning was not my idea of a good time. (Mind you in those days you only got three points for a try.)

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

There's still mud over here occasionally, but this thing that we're having right now could hardly be called a "winter" - not even by a long shot. It's dry and sunny most of the time. What shall I say... The charms of quasi-Mediterranean climate.

5 pts for a try totally changes everything! :)

Nate Silver on FIFA

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You may find this pretty interesting to read. (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-break-fifa/) Before he got into political material, Nate Silver was a statistical guru for mostly Sports related subjects, and he's done a rather nice piece on FIFA: How to Break Fifa (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-break-fifa/). Since Sepp Blatter has resigned, that make remove a lot of the gravitas for UEFA and its 54 countries to leave FIFA.

A lot of detailed analysis and statistics to back up Mr. Silver's argument (if money rules the day, then sponsorship and viewership of the games is the tail that wags the dog):

You can argue, of course, that it isn’t a bad thing for FIFA to give more representation to developing countries. I’d have a few counterarguments to make. First, it doesn’t square with FIFA’s decision to give the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, which has the world’s highest per-capita GDP by some estimates. And second, as my colleague Carl Bialik wrote this week, FIFA’s governing procedures happen to suit the interests of the plutocrats who run it very well.

And in some ways, these estimates make favorable assumptions for developing countries. Purchasing-power parity (PPP) GDP, the version I’ve used here, shows less stark wealth differences than GDP based on official exchange rates. Furthermore, these figures reflect viewership for the World Cup, as opposed to club football, where a few countries are even more responsible for bringing an audience to the game and cultivating the world’s soccer talent. Of the 736 players on the roster for the 2014 World Cup, 563 (or 76 percent) played their club football in a UEFA country. Relations between the European club teams and FIFA are already tense, in part because a winter World Cup in Qatar would require interrupting the club season. (FIFA compensates the clubs for releasing their players for international matches, which they are not required to do.)

I think you and other soccer fans will really enjoy the compactness of information given in Mr. Silver's article.