Sepp Blatter - Understanding the legacy of the man who ruled football for 17 years

Sepp Blatter steps down as President of FIFA - after 17 years as the undisputed King of world football

"Football in Africa is increasing in leaps and bounds. As they learn something of administration we shall hear much more from them." – Sir Stanley Ford Rous, CBE

Sounds a bit patronizing doesn’t it?

“As they learn something of administration...”! Sheesh– that’s the kind of thing you would expect an old British soldier with a colonial hangover to say while sitting around sharing a few drinks with his mates, right? So when Stanley Rous – an old British soldier with a colonial hangover, if ever there was one - said as much a few months after his beloved England had lifted the Jules Rimet trophy, it wasn’t much of a surprise. In the grand scheme of things, it really shouldn’t have mattered all that much.

Except for one small thing; Sir Stanley Ford Rous, CBE, was no ordinary British gentleman. He was President of FIFA and the most powerful man in the world football at the time.

You see, no African nation had represented their continent on the world’s grandest stage that year – the decision of Rous’ FIFA to not guarantee a finals spot to Africa had resulted in a mass boycott by the continent’s teams – and he had had to address the question of what the future held for Africa in the World Cup. Cue that masterpiece in good old imperial condescension.

European nations, and to a certain extent a couple of the South American ones, formed the footballing elite – a clique that completely dominated world football on and off the field – and Rous was their figurehead (as had been the five Europeans that preceded him).

João Havelange was the first person to truly identify the political potential of siding with the “have-nots”, and his defeat of Rous in the 1974 FIFA presidential elections and subsequent 24-year reign laid the blueprint for the phenomenal rise of Joseph “Sepp” Blatter from the tiny town of Visp in Switzerland to the very top of world football.

A young Sepp with his “godfather” – the Brazilian, João Havelange

Putting the “world” in “world football”

The neglected confederations – CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, Oceania and Asia – were ripe for the picking; starved of funds and recognition, they were crying out for attention. Havelange may have started it – but it was his protégé, Blatter, who mastered it.

People like the Tahitian, Reynald Temarii, the Nigerian, Amos Adamu and the cartoonishly corrupt Trinidadian, Jack Warner were rewarded with promotions and positions for their loyalty.

Proposals such as the equal distribution of World Cup funds amongst all member nations (imagine Spain getting the same amount of money as Curaçao – just take a deep breath and imagine that) were introduced to reward the associations and its members.

Everyone got a piece of the action – Niccolò Machiavelli would have been proud. Why, though, did Blatter go to these lengths to include everyone, no matter how small or unheard-of the nation was, you ask? The answer lies in the voting system for the FIFA presidential election.

In the voting process, every member has one vote and regardless of whether you are Germany (FIFA rank 1) or Anguilla (FIFA rank 209), your vote has the same value – one. The importance of wooing the 56 members from Africa, 47 from Asia, 41 from North and Central America and 14 from Oceania becomes incredibly evident now, doesn’t it?

Since taking office amidst a swirl of bribery allegations in ‘98, Blatter has jumped from one controversy to another - from the recently concluded World Cup in Brazil to the upcoming ones in Qatar and Russia, there has been no shortage of publicity of the bad kind.

What many don’t realize though or chose to ignore, is that this is nothing new. FIFA and controversy have always been intertwined in a way that often defies belief.

The aforementioned Rous openly supported apartheid South Africa and the erstwhile nation of Rhodesia (to the point that he once proposed a separate confederation for the two nations only, after their expulsion from CAF), Jules Rimet – father of the World Cup – “awarded” the 1934 World Cup to Benito Mussolini’s Italy, and Asia – the world’s largest continent - was allowed only two entrants till ’98.

But for a while now we have associated Blatter with FIFA’s morally decrepit core, and thanks to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it does look like that impression will be with us for a long time.

Blatter with Jérôme Valcke, FIFA’s Secretary General, whose involvement in the $10 million kickback handed out during the South Africa 2010 World Cup bid award is being investigated

Blatter’s Legacy

“The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interred with their bones.”

Yes, there have been ludicrous excesses along the way – the handling of affairs at Brazil (the clearing of favelas and over-spending of millions of dollars) and Qatar (the unbearable cases of worker deaths and inhumane working conditions) are inexcusable cases of “If I close my eyes, it doesn’t exist” and the reported levels of bribery and corruption are mind-boggling, but it hasn’t been all doom and gloom.

For better or worse, FIFA is truly democratic – every nation has a say in its functioning and however convoluted and corrupt the present setup maybe we must not allow it to go back to the days of European elitism.

FIFA has been recording phenomenal profits and much of that has been passed on to the member nations (nearly 70% according to FIFA) and strong audit processes have been put in place. Hopefully, the purported reforms will result in the increase in transparency of these transactions and not result in a reduction of money share for the smaller nations.

For - it may not be perfect, but - we must take the one clearly good thing Blatter’s legacy leaves FIFA – the inclusion of the rest of the world into the governing and policy making process of the world’s most popular sport – and make sure no one dilutes that.

Football is, after all, everyone’s sport.

Sepp’s Gone. What Next FIFA?

With that shock resignation of Blatter’s the path is clear for the man who pushed the Swiss to a second round (before withdrawing) just last week – Prince Ali bin Hussein. Who better to usher in a new era of democracy and reform in FIFA than a man whose family has been ruling his country for nigh on a hundred years?

Nobody does irony quite as well as FIFA, eh?