Well, thank God world football was saved on Wednesday when the 61st FIFA Congress abandoned any notion of cleaning up its image as the world's most corrupt organisation outside of the Mafia and cheerily reinstated unopposed Sepp Blatter as its President-for-Life-or-the-Next-Four-Years-Whichever-Lasts-Longer. And thank God doubly that the Right Honourable Sepp was willing to continue making the great personal sacrifice, that is presiding over the world football cash register and its billion pounds sterling a year revenue, and only for the benefit of the rest of us slackers. Is there no limit to His Excellency Sepp's altruism? Does it not expose the naked greed of everyone else? Tell the truth: if you were 75 years old and had more money than your grandchildren's grandchildren could spend if, for the next five generations, the whole family turned out to be crack addicts, Home Shopping Network devotees and compulsive gamblers, would you be doing everything you could to saddle yourself with four more years of backbreaking work? Or would you be lying on a beach somewhere with a bottle of Single Barrel Reserve at your side, a good book in your hands and two nubile women in your lap?
The next time you look at the old Sepp, then, you bear in mind how much he's giving up in the interest of world football (and not at all in the interest of its bank account). And don't for a moment think that the job is easy; indeed, it may be the most dangerous political office in the world, with only the president of Afghanistan and the mayor of Baghdad more likely to be assassinated. If Monica Seles could be stabbed on a tennis court in Hamburg, imagine what could happen to Saint Sepp if he weren't constantly looking over his shoulder every time he went to Wembley Stadium! (Everyone in world football knows that England, as a country, is still fuming over losing the World Cup bid to Russia, that paragon of legality, and that the English are deeply jealous of Lord Sepp's success, with even Queen Elizabeth muttering enviously about longevity.) What an ugly moment it was for the beautiful game on Wednesday, when English Football Association president, David Bernstein, attempted to have the coronation of King Sepp postponed until a later date, so that the possibility might arise that he might conceivably have an opponent. Thank God the motion was heavily defeated, with only 17 of the 208 member associations willing to risk upsetting the cash flow...sorry, apple cart.
If the attempt of the English to sully FIFA with democracy was the 61st Congress' most shameful moment, there could not have been a prouder one for anyone involved in the administration of the sport anywhere in the world than His Grace Sepp's media conference on Tuesday, when he demonstrated how you handle difficult questions from reporters: by telling the journalists off for asking them, and reminding them sternly that, in the good old days, when you were yourself a reporter, you would have had the dignity to respect dignity and not put old farts to the indignity of facing questions that did not come with glib answers; and then walking off absent-mindedly, but pausing and almost returning, as though your Alzheimer's had suddenly set in but hadn't quite kicked in. Apart from the personal risk and the exhausting daily politicking necessary to enjoy a long turn holding the knife carving up world football profits, administering football on a planetary level is no walk or kick-up in the park. His Royal Highness Sepp has to start every day of life calculating the odds of an attempt being made to unseat him and, thereby, pitch global football into chaos that would destroy the sport as inevitably as the overthrow of the French king, Louis XVI, in 1789, led to the Reign of Terror. If it was accurate for Louis' forebear, Louis XIV, the Sun King, to declare, "L'etat, c'est moi," it was even more so for His Majesty Sepp, the Sunday Disciplinary Hearing King, to begin to understand that, "Le football, c'est moi."
Which leads to the most difficult part of being the Godfather of FIFA, which itself leads to the inglorious part T&T played in the recent, shameful history of world football. The hardest part of being the undisputed ruler of anything is that you must do away with any dispute; and without mercy, when required. When His Gloriousness Jah Rastafari Sepp realised, last week, that there was a possibility that our own footballing knight errant, Jack Warner, might not support his bid for reinstatement/coronation/canonisation, rather than risk an interruption to the ongoing improvement of world football that is the same as the reinstating of himself-le football, c'est moi-God the Father of Football Sepp had no choice but to sacrifice his son. It must have pained the Football King to watch his good friend and colleague be suspended from FIFA pending an investigation into his alleged corruption. For decades now, the two have worked side-by-side for the benefit of football, allowing nothing to come in the way of their aims-and, last week, to ensure his own survival, and the survival of the principle that there can be only one chain of command/patronage in FIFA, King Sepp Blatter had to allow his best football friend be thrown to the wolves. Perhaps there would be those who think that the really lucky people today are not involved in football at all and can speak plainly about it without worrying whether their next FIFA million was jumping up in steelband; but I side with the greatest of FIFA traditions and call for business as usual; particularly bearing in mind that, even in breach of his suspension, Jack Warner himself called for the reappointment of the once-and-always monarch. In assuming his fourth term, Sepp Blatter is certainly Four King football. Royally.
BC Pires is offside. Read more of his writing at www.BCraw.com