Blatter 1. Football 0.
After a tumultuous week, its another dark day in football history. Sepp Blatter has once again been elected for the presidency of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Despite being opposed by HRH Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan and not receiving enough votes to immediately be crowned president after the first round, a second round was not necessary anymore due to Prince Ali retracting his candidacy, resulting in quite the anticlimax.
Earlier in the week the news arose of the the FBI ordering the arrest of multiple FIFA officials after having tracked down money transfers hinting at corruption which went through US bank accounts. This news brought a lot of extra pressure on Sepp Blatter who came out and said that despite being the president of the whole FIFA organization, he cannot be held responsible for corruption in the organization. Unfortunately, most of the football world is still blind to the current disastrous state the FIFA finds itself in.
In case its not clear yet, I personally am not a fan of the re-elected leader to put it lightly. Fortunately, the majority of Europe shares this opinion, which means that there are many doubts when it comes to the future of football. The Union Européenne de Football Association (UEFA) members will come together in Berlin next month for the UEFA Champions League final to discuss future actions. Some member countries’ football association representatives have called out that something will need to happen, especially in the case of Blatter getting re-elected. Some other people involved in football in general have called out for boycotting the coming world cups which are to be hosted in Russia and Qater in 2018 and 2022, respectively, due to corruption allegations with respects to the allocation of those world cups.
Either way, whatever happens, a clear signal has been sent to FIFA. Sepp Blatter will also have to take more responsibility and actually guide the FIFA to a more socially responsible and transparent future. The first step would be to fully publish the Garcia report, which investigates the allegations of corruption, rather than just publish an extremely censored summary as the FIFA have currently done. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but lets pray for the best, for the sake of football.
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