Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the whole FIFA re-election/alleged corruption/ back-hander story is that people are genuinely surprised it could possibly take place.
Incredibly, such naivety is widespread, on a par with the Football Association’s call for FIFA to postpone Wednesday’s presidential election on the basis that the two principle candidates, reduced at the weekend to one, are being investigated for alleged corruption.
A week ago, the larger-than-life Chuck Blazer, a member of FIFA’s Executive Committee, submitted a report to world football’s “Ethics Committee” which charged Mohammed bin Hammam, until Sunday a potential FIFA president, with offering bribes.
According to Blazer, bin Hammam offered the cash bribes to FIFA vice-president Jack Warner in return for support in the election.
Mr bin Hammam’s response was nothing short of incredible. There was no vehement denial of Mr Blazer’s claims.
Instead, he accused his presidential opponent, Sepp Blatter, of knowing all along about these cash sweeteners before alleging that the FIFA president has presided over a regime which is corrupt to the core.
Perhaps Mr bin Hammam sees himself as a ‘victim’, a previously innocent soul who has fallen in with that nasty FIFA crowd.
Not only has the process by which the FIFA World Cup is awarded become as transparent as a Bernie Madoff operation, but world football’s governing body is increasingly derided as a haven of corruption.
The question many football supporters will be asking is ‘how can this problem be tackled, ideally with the ferocity an angry Nemanja Vidic?’
The answer is that, in the short term at least, it cannot.
Barring a mass walk-out by at least 100 football associations from FIFA, the likelihood is that the governing body will roll off the ropes and continue in its unreformed, unrepentant state.
The reason the status quo will remain can be directly attributed to the enormous quantities of cash on offer to those corrupt individuals in positions of power at FIFA fortunate enough to determine where World Cups should be staged.
The Olympic movement found itself in a similar position just over a decade ago when some representatives of cities bidding to host an Olympic Games felt they must bribe officials in order to secure their precious vote.
Salt Lake City’s representatives overstepped the line (or perhaps they were just foolish enough to get caught) and the whole stinking process was exposed.
Had it not been for a Utah television station, KTVX, running a story in November 1998 which revealed that the Salt Lake organising committee had been paying university and accommodation fees for the daughter of a late Cameroon member of the IOC, the probability is that the body would not have undergone wholesale reorganisation.
It’s worth recalling that Salt Lake’s systematic programme of vote enticement ran to little more than $3 million (the extent of educational scholarships for relatives of IOC members was worth around $500,000), but this is small beer with the amount of money at stake when the venue for the world’s leading football tournament, FIFA’s showpiece, is being voted upon.
