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

FIFA cover up and Blatter’s legacy

Blatter’s predecessor, the once highly esteemed Dr Joao Havelange, took large scale bribes throughout the 90s from media company ISL for the World Cup rights. The secret payments only came to light when a liquidator discovered the irregular funds after ISL went bust.

When a Swiss court ruled Havelange, the FIFA honorary president at the time, as well as Ricardo Teixeira, Nicolas Leoz, and Issa Hayatou, all FIFA executive committee members, guilty of taking bribes from ISL, FIFA took no action.

In fact, FIFA went as far as to pay back the money, which had been stolen from its own organization, on their behalf. Due to Havelange’s age and other factors, the court decided not to press criminal charges and the case, as Blatter and FIFA so desperately desired, stayed secret until 2012.

A FIFA lawyer at the time all but condoned their actions, as seen in David Conn’s The Fall of the House of Fifa, stating:

"“a claim made by FIFA in South America and Africa would hardly have been enforceable because bribery payments belong to the usual salary of the majority of the population.”"

So while an aging Blatter continues to battle against possible charges and his ban from football, a proclamation of ignorance will fall on deaf ears.

It is true Blatter’s misdemeanours were not on the scale of other officials and that he may not be as corrupt as his predecessor or even as his successor (as we will get to next); but he was the man at the helm as FIFA drifted into a dense mist cloaking secret handshakes and sailed through the murky waters of elaborate deception.

Any of the genuine good Blatter did for the game will always be viewed as being marinated in a self-interest to stay in power and the defining image of his 40 years work at FIFA will be the one at the top of the page – disgraced in a shower of dirty money.