Rejection

What does FIFA actually “do”? Flying around the world, staying in the best hotels, free tickets to top matches, banquets, “escort” women… but what do they “do”? Frankly, I have no idea. I hope that “blatter” takes off as a verb. To “blatter” would mean to live a charmed life in complete denial of any wrongdoing. Jeffrey Archer? Jose Mourinho? Bill Clinton? They have all been guilty of blattering.

Of course, we are well aware what FIFA does – it controls world football (ie the international side of the game beyond the individual continents). It has attempted to exert its influence for many years by “sweeteners” of one type or another. This way of operating can’t come as anything new to any of us so, Sepp Blatter and his chums, have largely been doing their jobs (in many ways quite effectively) especially in developing football in the backwaters of the world but, sadly, have allowed themselves to be influenced by the money that could be earned in the process.

Incidentally, the FA (admittedly quite small in comparison to FIFA) did, at one time, send teams (FA Elevens) to far flung corners of the Empire/Commonwealth to spread the “footballing message” to those countries where football was in its infancy. The teams were usually made up of a sprinkling of top class professional players and then the bulk were lesser known Football League players and decent players from the amateur game. Whether any form of corruption went on (financially or otherwise) perhaps we’ll never know as the majority of those involved are now “pushing up the daisies.” Anyway, the British don’t do that kind of thing.