Let me start by saying this. I’m glad that Sepp Blatter finally found it within himself to do the honourable thing and step down as FIFA President. But he should have done it Thursday, to save FIFA the embarrassment and humiliation of re-electing him to the top job there, only to then face another election process in quick succession.
But the whole debacle over the arrests and how FIFA responded to them, showed up the organisation as completely corrupt, and thinking themselves untouchable. It showed up an organisation that had no transparency and no accountability to the people that ultimately pay their wages, the fans around the world who watch football, and play the FIFA branded video games.
In the aftermath of the arrests, the election should have been postponed, or at least Sepp Blatter should have announced that he was not going to stand for re-election. He might have had a vision for Football, or Soccer as it’s known in some countries, but he had no vision when it came to the optics of the situation both he and FIFA were facing.
The optics were only made worse by Vladimir Putin offering his support to Blatter. That should be a warning sign in itself. If Putin offers you his support, turn it down. It makes you look a hell of a lot worse.
Now he has stepped down and an emergency congress will elect a replacement, maybe we will actually start to see the change that is necessary in FIFA to bring it into the 21st century. Maybe we’ll even see them take the decision to move the 2018 and 2022 World Cup venues due to the corruption allegations. But progress in these sorts of matters is always slow, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for them.
