FIFA President, Sepp Blatter (left), did not feel moved to open any level of inquiry when the BBC Panorama team made allegations of corruption by senior board members.
Blatter answers to no-one. To be FIFA President is to be annointed into business royalty where usual business standards do not apply.
FIFA Vice-President, Jack Warner had already been caught flogging $1m worth of tickets to agencies and touts in 2006. His punishment was to be asked to repay the money. It would appear being caught did not deter him from doing it again this year.
Putting to one side these grave allegations, Andy Anson head of 'our' bid committtee called Panorama "an embarrassment to the BBC."
The wrath of many media organisations, particularly owned by Rupert Murdoch has been to lay into the Beeb accusing them of "sabotage" just before the decision on whether Britain should host 2018 World Cup. Was it not the Sunday Times who first revelead delegates taking 'sweeteners'?. Anyway, it would hardly be in the BBC's interests as they would get to broadcast the World Cup where Sky would not. In any case it was good to see old-fashioned investigative journalism infuriating these remote sporting despots.
The conditions set by FIFA on any World Cup bid are sickenly restrictive. The host country must agree to allow FIFA to protect its Amazonian like revenue stream by making temporary changes to tax and commercial law. We saw this in South Africa where all street sellers were cleared out within a mile of the stadia. During wet matches fans were only allowed to use FIFA umbrellas and not their own.
Suddenly our bid looks less favourable then the Russians. FIFA may yet regret getting into bed with Putin et al who are not so pliant as we would have been. To Sepp it is a mere detail.
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