The key players who shaped a “good week for Fifa”:
1) ‘Zero tolerance is my battle horse’
Sepp Blatter: Promised delegates in Zurich on Friday that he’ll deliver a “turning point” to “stop the boat rocking and glide it placidly into port” – building on the turning point he promised after his unopposed win in 2011. Blatter told Fifa congress then, as he celebrated alone on stage with a bunch of flowers: “I am the captain weathering the storm. Let’s put our ship back on course, in clear transparent waters.”
• Blatter’s other best turning points: 2007 – “During my third period in office, football will take on a more pronounced and extensive social role”; 2002 – “Give me 100 days to examine how I can initiate structural change in Fifa. The past few months have not hurt me physically but in my heart. I want to restore peace, harmony and unity to Fifa”; and – after a new round of allegations in 2011 – “I’m fighting to clean Fifa – and zero tolerance is my battle horse.”
2) ‘Generally without credibility’
Chuck Blazer: US executive – enjoys fancy dress, tax evasion, money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud, and indulged in so much fine dining “that he needed a fleet of mobility scooters to move from feast to feast”. In 2006 he faced court on behalf of Fifa when MasterCard alleged deception in a sponsorship deal. The judge ruled Blazer was “generally without credibility” and had fabricated his testimony; Fifa paid $90m to settle; Blatter called the remarks “very biased”, and promoted Blazer to head of marketing.
3) ‘I will sue to the high heavens, court after court’
Jack Warner: Former Fifa vice-president – on bail in Trinidad and denying wrongdoing. In 2014 he called allegations against him an example of press “foolishness” – a repeat of 2010’s “BBC foolishness” and 2012’s “damn foolish” early rumours of an FBI inquiry: “I will sue to the high heavens … It will be court after court after court.”
In 2006, after being doorstepped, Warner told journalist Andrew Jennings: “Go fuck yourself … No foreigner, particularly a white foreigner, will come to my country and harass me” – and in 2009 he attacked press questions over a £230 handbag given to Mrs Warner by the England 2018 bid team: “This has taught me about the English media … about their credibility, their commitment to truth.” In 2013 he set up his own newspaper in Trinidad to redress the balance: “Truth, when crushed to the ground, will always rise … A new weekly newspaper shall be launched – Sunshine Newspaper – bringing new hope to your lives.”
4) Caymans, captains and compliance
Jeffrey Webb: Arrested a month after hosting Blatter at his confederation’s congress in the Bahamas. A former member of Fifa’s Transparency and Compliance Committee, and its Finance Committee, the Cayman Islands FA president has business links to the Captain’s Bakery food chain, owned by Jamaica FA head Captain Horace Burrell – who spent six months out of the game on a bribery ban in 2013. Webb later rehired him as Concacaf’s head of finance, compliance and integrity. Also elected at Webb’s congress in April: Costa Rica’s Eduardo Li, dawn-raided last week before he could be sworn in.
5) ‘I have not stolen so much as a cent’
Nicolás Leoz: The 86-year-old former head of South America’s Conmebol confederation – arrested last week, along with his successor, the Fifa finance committee member Eugenio Figueredo. Leoz, who denied in 2010 that he offered his World Cup vote to England 2018 if they secured him a knighthood or had the FA Cup renamed after him, resigned from all Fifa roles in 2013. “I am retiring with the tranquillity and knowledge of having done a sincere, honest job. I have not stolen so much as a cent.” The Paraguayan also spoke about the European media’s obsession with Fifa’s bribe culture. “A while ago the press in England were at it; now the German press do it. I don’t know. What is it that drives these people?”
6) ‘Fuck you lot. I can do what I want’
José Maria Marin: Former Brazil FA head, arrested last week – famous for being caught on camera in 2012 pocketing a young player’s medal during a presentation ceremony. Marin succeeded the since-exiled Ricardo Teixiera, who revealed in 2011 how two decades of “pathetic” press attention alleging bribery, money laundering, embezzlement, fraud and tax evasion meant nothing. “I don’t care about that. Fuck you lot. I can do what I want to the press. Seriously, they cannot touch me.” Marin left office in 2014, succeeded by Marco Polo del Nero, 74 – who fled Switzerland last Thursday. In 2012, Del Nero defended Marin, then his boss, over the medal-pocketing incident, telling a reporter that Marin’s act was “totally normal. There are always spare medals. Would you like one too?”
7) ‘Enough slander. The process is clean’
Ángel María Villar Llona: Spain’s FA head – named among 10 Fifa executives to be questioned over the World Cup voting, a week after Fifa restored him as chair of the referees’ committee to oversee the “application and interpretation” of fair play. In 2010 Llona attacked coverage of the voting process, telling colleagues: “I love Fifa dearly but those I love the most are my colleagues. Recently we have been criticised by certain media, but unfortunately for them, Fifa is a clean institution. Enough slander. This process is clean – whatever they say.”
Meanwhile: rallying round
Among those rallying round Blatter last week: Guinea-Bissau’s FA president Manuel Nascimento Lopes, who called the attacks “blasphemy … It’s a state conspiracy.” Nigeria’s FA head Amaju Pinnick – who was elected in 2014 amid allegations of an “illegal, violent and abusive” process after his predecessor was arrested three times in three months – said: “We will vote for Mr Blatter. He makes us all enjoy benefits.” In 2012, Pinnick set out his qualifications for football family membership in an interview about his inspirations and hobbies: a) “It need not be overstated that my [former] position as assistant to Mr Joseph Sepp Blatter remained a defining moment in my life”; and b) “In all modesty, I love wrist watches and perfumes - no matter the cost.”
No longer with us
One voice missing at congress: former Fifa head of finance Julio Grondona, who died last year. In 2011 Grondona told English press “pirates” to “leave the Fifa family alone … We always have attacks from England. Their journalism is more busy lying than telling the truth.” Also that year he won a ninth four-year term as head of Argentina’s FA, despite being secretly filmed discussing “black money” and “killing” journalists for alleging money laundering. Grondona accepted his win with defiance. “In my years in office I have been charged more than Al Capone, and never once been punished … I’m all about peace, patience and balls.”
Steadiest hand
Still holding it all together at last week’s congress: Fifa’s general secretary Jérôme Valcke – who was sacked as Fifa’s marketing head in 2006 after the New York judge who dispatched Blazer said Valcke had “lied repeatedly” to potential sponsors. Lawyers said that among Fifa’s “white lies, commercial lies, bluffs, pure lies, straight untruths and perjury, Mr Valcke even lied when testifying about his lies”. Blatter rehired him eight months later.
England’s moral lead
Taking a lead against Blatter last week: David Cameron – four years after he dismissed a BBC Panorama exposé of Fifa’s practices as “frustrating” and welcomed “Mr President” to Downing Street. “Mr President, you have done a huge amount for football during your whole life. The decisions you have made have been instrumental in taking the game to new heights.” Cameron also held a 30-minute private talk with Jack Warner, who told the press afterwards: “Mr Cameron is a knowledgeable man. He knows about football, but not only that, he knows about the bidding process as well. I certainly trust his knowledge of football.”
• Backing Cameron’s view that Panorama was “frustrating” in 2010: the England bid leader Andy Anson, who called the BBC “unpatriotic”; the bid team, who said it was “an embarrassment to the BBC, raking over historical allegations which have no relevance”; the international bid chairman David Dein: “It should have been broadcast on the History Channel”; and the Sun, which published an Ian Wright column headlined “BRAINLESS, BETRAYING, CRETINOUS”, and ran an open letter: “Today the Sun makes this plea to Mr Blatter and Fifa: don’t be put off by the BBC rehashing ancient history. Despite BBC muckraking, the Sun trusts Fifa to put football first.”
Plus: the unanswerable question
Sepp, pondering his lot at the Oxford Union last year: “There are not many names the media haven’t thrown at me in the last few years. I would be lying to you if I said it didn’t hurt. You ask yourself: what have I done?”
