Sepp Blatter Will Resign As FIFA President [UPDATE]
By Ty Duffy
Soccer’s cockroach has been killed. FIFA President Sepp Blatter, reelected on Friday, will resign. FIFA will call a special election to elect his successor. Let the world rejoice.
It’s not clear what changed immediately from Friday to Tuesday. However, the New York Times report of FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke’s involvement in the $10 million bribery payment for the South African World Cup likely played a role. Neither has been implicated for a crime. But, Valcke is a close associate of Blatter. If Valcke knew what the payment was for, it’s almost inconceivable Blatter did not.
Broadly, FIFA needs major reform. Blatter, alienating much of Europe and the U.S., had become an intractable obstacle to said reform. Soccer’s major Western powers could not stop Blatter’s election. They could, however, break away from FIFA, hold their own tournament, and take the vast bulk of the sponsorship and TV revenue with them.
We’ve killed the cockroach. Now…about the bed bugs…
[UPDATE: ABC News reports that Sepp Blatter was a subject of the FBI investigations]