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Is FIFA any better off with Gianni Infantino as president than it was with Sepp Blatter?

By Karl Harrington

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND - JULY 20: A comedian attacked FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter with money during a press conference at the Extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee Meeting at the FIFA headquarters on July 20, 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland. (Photo by Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND - JULY 20: A comedian attacked FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter with money during a press conference at the Extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee Meeting at the FIFA headquarters on July 20, 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland. (Photo by Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images) /
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An analysis of how bad Sepp Blatter actually was and if Gianni Infantino has made any progress in terms of transparency at FIFA.

Before I delve into the malpractices of FIFA presidents, I feel it pertinent to bring up the goings on at CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) which proved the catalyst for the unearthing of the global football scandal.

For over two decades, Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer, a pair who shared an insatiable hunger for money, ran the far-reaching organization.

Among their most blatant acts of deceit was a $10 million payment made to Warner by the South African government for a ‘Diaspora Legacy Programme.’ Blazer, the scandal’s original whistleblower, testified in court that this was a bribe for himself, Warner, and a third party in return for their vote for the 2010 World Cup hosting rights.

Another was the Dr. Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence – a luxurious CONCACAF base consisting of a hotel, swimming pool, banquet and conference halls, and football pitches. The project cost around $26 million plus maintenance and unbeknown to both FIFA and CONCACAF was all in Jack Warner’s name.

But it was the brazen act of handing out brown envelopes containing $40,000 cash in a meeting organized by Warner and Mohamed Bin Hammam – during the latter’s bid for the FIFA presidency – which acted as the crack of the shot that triggered the avalanche of FIFA investigations.

With the disgraced pair receiving lifetime bans from the game one would have hoped, and taken for granted, that a new era of transparency was afoot. And there seemed no better to provide it than Jeffrey Webb.

Webb was a member of FIFA’s Transparency and Compliance Committee and came across with such nobility that many saw him as a  future FIFA president. He exhausted the rhetoric on ‘transparency, compliance, and reform,’ and ensured there were thorough investigations into his disgraced predecessors at CONCACAF.

But while he was promising reforms in one breath, he was soliciting hefty bribes in the next.

The stunning hypocrisy came to light on May 27th 2015 when he was arrested alongside 13 other FIFA executives at Baur au Lac hotel in Zürich. During his short reign, Webb allegedly pocketed $1.1 million from selling the Gold Cup rights, and solicited a further $2 million when the contract was extended the following year.

He simply carried on where Warner had left off as CONCACAF president. In fact, he had begun before he even had both feet in the door – demanding a $3 million bribe as he negotiated the World Cup qualifying rights as a stand in for Warner. An indictment even claims both men stole relief funds intended for the poorest regions in the Caribbean such victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

So, what was Sepp Blatter – the face of corruption in football – up to when all of this was taking place?

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