Another weekend approaches. All eyes in this turbulent 2018-22 World Cup bidding war will soon be turning again towards the Sunday Times.
After Wednesday’s dramatic media conference, complete with an appearance by the FIFA President himself, it seems to me this could now go one of three ways.
Scenario Number One: the well-resourced London newspaper unleashes its second volley; more FIFA Executive Committee members are embarrassed/forced to try and defend themselves; FIFA is made to look really very silly indeed and the whole bidding process descends into farce, probably necessitating an Extraordinary FIFA Congress.
While I wouldn’t altogether rule this out, I just think Joseph Blatter is too shrewd to allow this to happen, not least because it could torpedo his - until this week very considerable - chances of being elected to another term as FIFA President.
Scenario Number Two: the newspaper has used all the material at its disposal; beyond congratulating itself on the impact it has had on the race, it publishes no new allegations; Ethics Committee Chairman Claudio Sulser, probably the only lawyer on the planet to have scored 13 goals for the Swiss national football team, and his colleagues can proceed with their investigation; eventually they publish their rulings and a wholly, or very substantially, intact ExCo is free to vote, as scheduled on December 2, on where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups should be played.
This seems almost too good to be true for FIFA, particularly as we now know that a second line of inquiry has been opened in the investigation, into “alleged agreements between member associations and their Bid Committees” in relation to the bidding process.
My hunch is that the newspaper may very well not yet have shared all it has unearthed with its readers.
But I return again to Wednesday’s media conference: surely a tactician as adroit as Blatter would have ensured things were handled very differently - and that the media were kept firmly at arm’s length - if he surmised there was a grave danger of further highly damaging allegations.
Which brings me to Scenario Number Three – for my money, perhaps the most plausible.
The newspaper does have more information, but whether for legal or other reasons, thinks better of publishing it; somehow in the brouhaha at the start of the week, Blatter and his colleagues get wind of what this information might be; this gives them leverage to reassert control over the bidding process in the final fraught weeks of the contest, ensuring their FIFA colleagues are not tempted to step out of line; the votes take place as planned, with or without the two bidders whose respective fates’ are already, in effect, in FIFA’s hands via the investigation into “alleged agreements”; Blatter announces the winners to the world with a satisfied smile and declares his approach to dealing with the crisis vindicated, perhaps with another highly quotable reference to society’s “devils”.
And so, not for the first time, the irrepressible Blatter may emerge triumphant from what at first appeared a distinctly unpromising situation.
It could be that my years of watching him reverse out of tight corners have led me to overestimate him.
But I wouldn’t be staking my house on it.
David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938