Blatter-must-go, Blatter-must-go, Blatter-must-go – scream it long and loud enough and even supposedly intelligent people will forget why they think he must go while firmly putting themselves in the vanguard of political activism – perhaps even use their influence to write silly letters for a cheap soundbite, willingly published by the land of Murdochia. Come on Greg, we had so much higher hopes for you.
You see, equating the FIFA Ethics not-so-merry-go-round with proof that there are clear grounds for dismissal of the president is one of the most intriguing non-sequiturs of thought processes the self-appointed (or media appointed/annointed) high-moral-ground football folk have come up with so far. In fact, the excitement of being so high up where the air is thinner is clearly encumbering the thought process.
And, pseudo-philosophically, what we should be talking about here is ‘process’ (is it due process?).
The judiciary and investigative work are separated in most jurisdictions of the world and the Garcia-Eckert dispute centres around in the judiciary – that of a ‘possibly’-agenda driven US-style prosecutor getting upset because he didn’t get the result he feels his investigation merited from the judge (i.e. the removal of Qatar and Russia as primary objectives). To suddenly leave this behind and leap to loudly chanting ‘Blatter must-go’ because of a dispute in the adjudicatory process seems like a very chunky leap.
The world has probably had enough of Blatter at the head of FIFA – he has probably had enough of it as well and was going to retire but the buffoons who were lining up to succeed him stuffed it all up. Gentlemen (and it is mainly men), if you can’t engineer a peaceful succession how the hell are you going to organise a revolution?
But this is one “old geezer” who loves a fight and so far there is no-one really equipped to even get in the ring with him. It is about politics and running a big organization with a global remit. There is a lot of Old World versus New World involved in this and there is more of them in the New World that support this Old World leader.
The phrasing in the report by Eckert of his warning to Blatter is deliberate and can only be meant as a warning – the kind of things judges say in summing up cases, oddly enough. FIFA comes out of the summary of the report looking like it did the right things as a statutory body, but its leader does get a warning. But not the roasting that those stoking the fires had pinned their hopes on.
There are two problems here (Bids and Blatter) and the one can’t be used to justify a solution of the other. They are separate issues connected by personnel and issues around those personnel. But they shouldn’t be used to cover up fronting up to the decision that Russia and Qatar should, on the (un)balance of things, go ahead and host. That was the judge’s ruling on the evidence in front of him. Most of the bids broke rules (not FIFA) and the investigation of the naughty individuals will now be taken further – and what a turn of events that took yesterday. Swiss police vs FBI – or will there be collusion there? Please Allah I hope not, or else we won’t know who to shout at. (Side-bar: How does the Garcia report establish suspicion of ‘money laundering’ and ‘assets transfers touching upon Switzerland’ when Garcia did not have any access to banking information nor law enforcement support? A bit odd, that one)
Presumably the investigations would have been taken further by Garcia if he hadn’t thrown his toys out the pram, issued a statement that ignited a nuclear storm and then ran to his bunker to hide from the radiation and wouldn’t elaborate. And here is another problem. He is the investigator, not the judge. And if all the judge did was to just agree with PC Plod (and a dubiously credentialed plod at that) then we wouldn’t need a judge.
But are we implying that judge Eckert is a Blatter crony and does as he is told? Don’t think Siemens would agree with that concept or the numbers of defendants he put behind bars for corruption over the years –his Munich Court is feared as the toughest to hear economic and financial crimes in Germany!). But everything is possible and Blatter is a deity – they were building churches in his name in the 14th century across Europe.
The line of thought that automatically assumes that because Garcia (but do we mean Garcia or the FBI) doesn’t like Eckert’s report then clearly Blatter must-go is really a non-starter. We don’t even need a kangaroo for this kind of court, let’s just bring in the guillotine. Nothing like a bit of Middle Ages, Euro-style justice.
So what next? Whistleblowers have provided a wonderfully Alice in Wonderland cameo to the plot – curiouser and curiouser as Alice would say.
And then of course there is the FBI and its phalanx of spies – there is one in every corner so it seems, can you spot them? It seems to be getting a tad confusing: whistleblowers as informants, ExCo Member snitches, so-called journalists who work for the FBI, bid members who lay bare their ‘knowledge’ to the highest government bidder… it is getting a bit very confusing, isn’t it?
Hopefully we will all be able to watch this saga unfold as an award-winning mini-series on a major US network (Murdoch’s videos come to mind?). At least they would be able to salvage some of their money from the $1bn+ TV rights fee for the new Winter (Olympics) World Cup.