SEPP BLATTER: EUROPE'S AL CAPONE

There used to be widespread derision in Europe that in the US of the 1930’s Al Capone was only ever convicted of tax fraud. I thought of this this morning when I saw the picture of Swiss police arresting FIFA officials in a Zurich hotel. As Marina Hyde tweeted: 


Marina Hyde @MarinaHyde  ·  9h 9 hours ago
'People make fun of US involvement in football but they've already gone further than anyone else in dealing with FIFA.'

The scale of corruption in FIFA has been an open secret at least for the last five years, much longer for those in the know. FIFA is now little more than a gigantic money making machine, run for the greed, megalomania and ostentatious lifestyle of those occupying positions of power within the organisation. 
One of the Arrested Official Jose Marin from Brazil
Marin was caught on camera in 2012 trousering a
medal during a youth football tournement.
At its heart sits the grotesque and unwholesome figure of Sepp Blatter. Like some Mafia godfather he has presided over a level of corruption and venality that would make a Tammany Hall political fixer blush. The point at which his arrogance and unaccountability collided with farce was surely when the 2022 World Cup was awarded to Qatar. Here was a man wholly divorced, not only from propriety, but sanity and the politics of the possible. The fact that as I type this he continues in office, confident that he can carry on, that it is business as usual, is as big a scandal as Al Capone continuing to hold court on the steps of the Lexington Hotel Chicago as he directed the murder of his opponents. Though in Mr Blatter’s case the victims are the poor and disadvantaged workers from Bangladesh, Nepal and other developing countries. “As things stand,” declares Play Fair Qatar, “more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament.”[1]
Sepp Blatter

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/may/20/slave-deaths-qatar-world-cup-2022-fifa

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