The ground shook yesterday as soccer's world body voted in a new leader: Gianni Infantini, a long time FIFA bureaucrat. Despite his name, he's a Swiss When members present did not go for Mr. Salman, the favorite, a new candidate emerged from the pack, a dark horse candidate.
Old Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former president, is working on his memoir, sitting on the sidelines, trying to make sense of all that has happened to his fiefdom that collapsed around his shoulders last year. With dogged persistence, criminal investigators with the F.B.I. constructed a case against him and his minions of corruption that surrounded the Swiss-based governing body of soccer. The exposure of bribery, corruption, multi-million dollar slush funds contributed to the downfall of Blatter and many of his lieutenants.
That Gianni Infantini would want to continue as the public face of this rotten group is not particularly shocking. For him and his many supporters, its merely a timely regime change. The perks will continue to flow, just a little less than in the recent past. This storm will blow over, and it will be back to business as usual. But it won't be business as usual.
Governments will now look at everything FIFA. No more rubber stamping of World Cup shenanigans. Bid for the CUP? Really? And who is in charge? Follow the money.
It really is time to dissolve FIFA once and for all. It is inherently corrupt, and cannot be fixed. Snuff it out. Start again. Get the players and fans involved. Remove corporate incentives; deprive the oligarchs of team control and ownership. Seems they will always be a corrupting influence of the "FORMERLY" beautiful game.
No comments:
Post a Comment