Digging one’s own grave is easy but digging another is quite difficult. On Wednesday, FIFA President Sepp Blatter continued his tour of “let’s take down all of FIFA so that I can be President again” by going directly at UEFA President Michel Platini. While many would like to see Mr. Blatter go away, either to a secluded island or a prison cell, now is not the time. With the game at a critical point in its history it is time for criminals like Blatter to continue to expose themselves so that all of football’s dirty secrets can be revealed and that a true fresh start can happen for the game.
It takes a certain lack of conscience (be it of pure evil or incompetence) to not know when to be quiet, to not listen to one’s advisors, and to continue to pick fights even though one is defeated. Lex Luthor suffers from this particular stigma. As does Doctor Doom (it takes a certain type of Eastern European dictator to wear a green skirt). Although the world may not have people who can fly or shoot laser beams out of their eyes thankfully there are still dumb villains like Blatter who are more than willing to foil their own plans.
Although Blatter may have had some success like all good supervillains he is his own worst enemy. By continuously using the press to air out his dirty laundry he leaves the entire rotting corpse that is FIFA susceptible to additional inquiries and investigations. Although the Swiss authorities and the Department of Justice are very good at their jobs it takes years to develop cases. Subpoenas and extraditions are also not the easiest documents to procure.
That is what makes Blatter’s interview on Wednesday so fascinating because unless one is a supervillain explaining his whole plan for global domination to the hero on page nine these sort of things very rarely happen. To have someone like Blatter make a statement like, “It was agreed inside the group that we go to Russia because it has never been to eastern Europe, and for 2022 we go back to America” while being under investigation for corruption and bribery that we can see a supervillain live and in person.
(Sidebar: One has to wonder what Blatter’s lawyer, Richard Cullen, is thinking right now. To try and defend a client who continuously destroys his own case in public must be a very frustrating job. Or lucrative. I am not quite sure which.)
The question is why is Blatter being so transparent now? This is after all a man who for years ran an organization whose rules were clandestine and who ran press conferences with an iron fist. FIFA has never really been this open about their internal workings nor have they been particularly forthright to outside opinions and observations (One could argue that they are still not).
Perhaps Blatter now understands the gravity of the situation and does not want to go down alone with the sinking ship. Most of this madness could have been avoided. Blatter at any point between May of this year and yesterday could have sensed that his time at the top was ending. Assuming that he was as involved in all of FIFA’s evil machinations as he is alleged to be he could have quite easily left FIFA and fled to one of the many countries whose football associations he helped prop up over the past twenty years.
No matter the reason for this moment of honesty from an alleged dishonest man it is to the benefit of international football that FIFA be flushed out. With an impending election and with candidates like Michel Platini also being implicated in impropriety it is imperative that FIFA or whatever organization takes its place get a fresh start. Blatter might be a bit of a blowhard and there may come a point where even the most faithful supporter of the global game suffers from information overload. But these stories have to get out into the open and those that were involved with creating this mess must be named.
Now all he needs is a codename.
