Facing an expanding scandal (including new information tracing an $10 million to one of his closest aides) FIFA President Sepp Blatter said Tuesday he will resign from FIFA. It is a long overdue action by Blatter that only took decades of corruption and scandal as well as international arrests. Many critics are still hopeful that Blatter (who has recently repeated his contempt for reformers and the investigation of corruption) will be the next to be indicted. Blatter however insists that he will remain in his position pending a new election that might not occur until December. After securing his reelection in a secret ballot, Blatter lashed out at U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Justice Department for daring to hold him or his associates accountable under bribery and corruption laws. Lynch correctly described FIFA as an organization run to enrich Blatter and his cronies. Blatter suggested that it was just sour grapes by the U.S. after its failed bid to for the 2022 World Cup — ignoring decades of criticism of Blatter in running one of the world’s most openly corrupt organizations. He absurdly suggested that all of the corruption allegations were just the work of American and English media: “The Americans were the candidates for the World Cup of 2022 and they lost. The English were the candidates for 2018 and they lost, so it was really with the English media and the American movement that came down.” Blatter has been the face of FIFA corruption and the seemingly invulnerability of high-ranking officials from outside pressure or even law enforcement. That came crashing down with the raid on the luxury hotel recently where some of his top officials were arrested under international warrants. Blatter seemed to strike a different tone from his combative, contemptuous persona only a couple days ago. Various officials announced their resignations after his reelection — citing a lack of commitment to reform. However, the timing seems conspicuously close to the disclosures of the details of the bribe and the connection to Jérôme Valcke, the soccer organization’s secretary general. Prosecutors identified Valcke as the unidentified “high-ranking FIFA official” who transferred $10 million in 2008 from FIFA to accounts controlled by soccer official, Jack Warner. Warner is at the center of the corruption investigation. There is now no space between Blatter and the criminal prosecution. With the risk of cooperating defendants, he has never been at greater risk of an arrest. Even without the arrest, his tenure at FIFA has been an utter disgrace — surpassed only by this morally corrupt organization reelecting him a couple days ago.
17 thoughts on “Un-Made Man: Blatter to Resign From FIFA”
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@TJustice
“Great stuff Ken Rogers.”
Thanks, TJ.
The harm done to millions of people by the crimes of the banksters makes any of FIFA pale in comparison.
Great stuff Ken Rogers.
Why FIFA, But Not the Banksters?
“The US authorities are throwing a book of charges at the organisation, ranging from bribery to commercial fixing, racketeering to tax evasion. It is claimed by the Americans that the corruption at FIFA amounts to $150 million.
“That sounds like a lot of sleazy money, but this figure pales in significance to the amount of corruption and criminality attributable to Wall Street banks and other Western financial institutions. For example, British bank HSBC alone has been caught running tax evasion, money-laundering for drug cartels and other illicit schemes that is estimated at $180 billion – or more than a thousand-fold the scale of criminality alleged at FIFA.
“Wall Street banks, including JP Morgan, are accused of massive, systematic rigging of gold price markets all in a shady bid to shield the US dollar value. That criminality, affecting the price of basic commodities and livelihoods for billions of people worldwide, is estimated to be in the order of trillions of dollars – or a thousand, thousand-fold the FIFA debacle.
“Moreover, these same banks, along with a slew of other global names – Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole among many others – were all directly responsible for the explosion in toxic financial derivatives that made their executives multimillionaires but which led to the global financial and economic meltdown in 2008.
“That meltdown – which persists seven years on from its inception – has resulted in millions of lives ruined from unemployment and the collapse of pensions and savings funds. Added to that are the myriad social hardships and crippled lives from the ensuing austerity imposed on the general Western public to pay for the financial catastrophe – a catastrophe that was deliberately and recklessly engineered by the major banks, hedge funds and other capitalist investment agencies.
“As Michel Chossudovsky writes in his co-authored book, The Global Economic Crisis: ‘The meltdown of financial markets in 2008-2009 was the result of institutionalised fraud and financial manipulation. The bank bailouts were implemented on the instruction of Wall Street, leading to the largest transfer of money wealth in recorded history, while simultaneously creating an unsurmountable public debt’.
“It is probable that generations of children to come will be forced to pay for the trillions of dollars of debt that was created by American and European banks, which have now been offloaded on to the public by governments in so-called ‘bail-outs’. Make no mistake, thousands of people have already died from the austerity that Western governments have imposed on their public in order to pay for the corporate fraud, tax evasion, fixing and embezzlement that has taken place in front of our eyes on a massive scale in the order of trillions of dollars.
“Yet in the face of this gargantuan, genocidal criminality not one board member or executive from the major banks involved in precipitating the global crash has been charged, let alone prosecuted or imprisoned. In fact, the Wall Street banking elite and their counterparts in the City of London are among the main political donors that helped to re-elect Barack Obama and David Cameron.
“The belated focus of American and British authorities on the alleged wrongdoings at FIFA can thus be readily seen as both ludicrous and laughable when we compare that with the absolute dearth of interest by these same authorities in applying law enforcement where it ought to be applied – on the Wall Street and City of London banksters.
“Obviously, then, the self-righteous campaign to root out fraud at FIFA is just so much pious nonsense. The astounding hypocrisy of US and British authorities leaves one with the unmistakable conclusion that the whole media-driven campaign against FIFA is nothing but a self-serving and cynical political agenda. And at the top of that agenda is to score geopolitical points against Russia.
“Until Washington and London governments go after priority financial crime in their midst, then anything they say about FIFA can be taken as very wide of the mark.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42037.htm
In these cases, and there are far too few, where the high up in society betray the confidence of those without whom they would not exist, the fines should be designed to gut them financially. The most appropriate penalty would be to do a year in prison and then get out with $57.57. in the bank.
Don’t take your eyes off the money. There is no way this guy is walking away without his golden parachute.
To drift off into obscurity…
So, I must have nodded off during the part where FIFA rebuffed Al Sharpton.
Sepp Blatter was born in Switzerland, so I presume he’s Swiss.
I asked before. Where is that Sepp fruit from? Not Ireland I hope.
@NickS
Thank you! I did another one on him the other day. Usually, you kick a ball, and then someone kicks it back to you. But. . .
A Sepp-tic Tank???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
In the normal progression of time,
Things occur with some reason and rhyme.
But in soccer world cliques,
Kick-backs precede kicks???
A strange and bizarre paradigm!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It seems very strange we have to clean up FIFA, can’t the Euros do anything themselves?
They were probably afraid whoever led the charge would be put in the group of death from now to eternity so they were happy to leave it to us.
FIFA can be thoroughly investigated.
The presiding structure of FIFA can be destroyed in a matter of days.
The Clinton Foundation can’t be investigated.
The Clintons can’t be investigated.
Bill Clinton’s alleged abuse of women (i.e. Bill Cosby, Dennis Hastert) can’t be investigated.
Hillary Clinton’s official actions and destruction of evidence (i.e. e-mail, servicers, etc.) can’t be investigated.
The simultaneous decision making by the Secretary of State and substantial contribution to the Clinton Foundation can’t be investigated.
The office of the Attorney General should be investigated with massive impeachment of officials who are derelict, negligent, incompetent and corrupt, conducting “selective” ideological prosecution.
Squeek, Great poem!
This is american Justice at its finest. Look at the sports and the many actors in the industry that are corrupt! Look aways when concerning war crimes and real atrocities.
So what is the us law school industry if yoo and koh, etc etc not only keep their jobs, but are well respected in most legal circles. #Fraud
Oh, time for another Irish Poem!
Extra Traditions???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
In deciding a country’s petition. . .
To host soccer’s next competition,
I bet that the case is- – –
More points to the places
Which don’t have legal extradition!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Note: Which is, according to this list:
I’m odd I suppose (not being a fan after Mia Hamm & Brandi Chastain)…but who knew “soccer” (futbol or whatever) could be so corrupt and profitably so? 🙂 Fascinating.
For honest soccer fans, today is like the day we got Saddam and the day we got Bin Laden rolled into one. His reign of soccer terrorism is over!