Media rue lack of shame of ‘unbudgeable’ Blatter

'Nothing up this sleeve': FIFA President Sepp Blatter has been roundly criticised within Europe for the murky business practices which have taken place on his 17-year watch Keystone

Swiss newspapers, like those in the rest of Europe, are shaking their heads at the re-election of Sepp Blatter as president of Zurich-based FIFA, world football’s governing body. But they say he now faces a tougher opponent in the shape of the US Department of Justice. 

“Sepp Blatter betrayed three institutions this week,” wrote Le Temps in Lausanne on Saturday. “FIFA’s president succeeded in having opprobrium poured on his organisation, the country which hosts its headquarters and his sport. How can he not draw the consequences from such a fiasco?” 

The paper acknowledged that Blatter personally wasn’t being hounded by the US legal system, “but how can he begin a new mandate when such a heavy suspicion hangs over him?” 

Blatter began his fifth term at the helm of FIFA on Saturday facing the daunting task of restoring public faith in an organisation tainted by allegations of corruption and deeply divided over his re-election. 

The 79-year-old Swiss won Friday’s vote at a FIFA congress in Zurich, having secured the support of blocks of votes from Asia and Africa which outweighed dissenters including European football’s governing body UEFA. 

The victory came two days after news broke of a major bribery scandal being investigated by US, Swiss and other law enforcement agencies that plunged FIFA into the worst crisis in its 111-year history. 

Blatter has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, but having ruled over FIFA since 1998, during which time it has regularly been subject to suspicions of corruption and internal probes, his critics have argued it was time for him to step down. 

‘Mafia organisation’ 

“It’s a characteristic of all dictators that they lose touch with reality, even their own conscience. In front of the FIFA congress, he expressed no doubt in his actions and simply committed to ‘fixing’ what he called ‘his’ FIFA,” Le Temps continued, describing Blatter as “unbudgeable” and “impossible to get rid of”. 

“This lack of shame and of any moral retreat on the part of its leader shows the extent to which FIFA isn’t working. All international organisations have developed and improved their standards of governance. FIFA has transformed into a mafia organisation focusing on the personal profit of some people.” 

The paper said one shouldn’t believe a single word of what was said at the general assembly in Zurich. “Sepp Blatter can’t dismantle a system which he himself put in place. And his tougher-than-expected election doesn’t constitute a sufficient signal for him to change his methods and organise a moral revolution at the heart of the home of football.” 

“What’s worse is that the organisation has become so powerful that no one was surprised when Blatter was re-elected two days after the police [arrested seven top officials]. It was an incredible sleight of hand by a conman on whom no charges seem to stick.” 

Le Temps concluded that FIFA’s situation  “should alert the Swiss authorities to the importance of taking matters into their own hands”. 

“The banks who are paying dearly for repeatedly violating US laws could serve as an example. It’s up to the Swiss legal system to investigate Sepp Blatter. Should a new scandal surrounding FIFA come to light, it will be too late to complain about any interference by the US justice authorities.” 

New man needed 

“The revolution devours its children,” noted tabloid Blick, quoting 18^th-century Geneva-born writer Jacques Mallet du Pan. “The ‘uprising’ of the Europeans under Michel Platini turned out, despite bold words, to be a damp squib.” 

The rest of the footballing world is practically united behind Blatter, it said. “For the moment there is no alternative to the eternal Sepp. But he too knows that the terrible news won’t stop. The US authorities won’t let themselves be simply shaken off like FIFA’s ethics commission,” it wrote. 

“The shambles is plain to see, even if the critics were unable to rock Blatter. In the medium term FIFA needs a new system, moving from a simple association to a transparent organisation. And for a carefree new start it needs a new man at the top. Not in just four years.” 

The Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich also pointed to FIFA being on a collision course with UEFA. “The conditions threaten to resemble those in boxing, where multiple associations each deny the others’ legitimacy.” 

But Blatter’s greater immediate challenge, the paper reckoned, would come from across the Atlantic. “The opponent there is of a different calibre to his Jordanian challenger Prince Ali bin Al Hussein yesterday and the traditionally critical European delegates: it is the American Department of Justice, working closely with the FBI, which is uncovering systematic corruption within FIFA.” 

UEFA ‘hate’ 

For his part, Sepp Blatter told Swiss Public Television, RTS, that the events in the run-up to his re-election “do not smell right” and he was the victim of UEFA “hate”.  

“The Americans, if they have a financial crime that regards American citizens, must arrest these people there and not in Zurich in the moment we have a congress,” he said. 

Despite his re-election, the scandal surrounding the investigations into corruption looks set to rumble on. UEFA president Michel Platini, who called on Blatter to step down, has raised the possibility, albeit slim, of Europe boycotting the World Cup, set to be held next in Russia in 2018. There has also been talk of UEFA breaking away from FIFA. 

“It is a hate not only by one person of UEFA but by the organisation of UEFA that has not understood that I have been president since 1998,” Blatter said. 

“I forgive everyone but I don’t forget.”