Sepp Blatter thinks you're really stupid and have a very short memory.
In fact, he's betting on it.
In the summer of 2006, in the wake of a tremendous amount of negative publicity related to the outrageous ticket kiting scheme that made Jack Warner an estimated (cue Dr. Evil) One MILLION Dollars, and other scandals and malfeasance, Blatter announced to great fanfare,that he was establishing an independent Ethics Committee to make sure that corruption, greed and other assorted bad stuff was rooted out of the game so that FIFA could be henceforth known as a shining beacon of honesty and fair play.
So at the FIFA ExCo meeting in September of 2006 he appointed the spotlessly clean Lord Coe to head a panel whose mission was to investigate corruption and enforce a new Code of Ethics which FIFA was instituting.
Speeches were made by all and sundry about how this was the answer to all those nasty minded people who were claiming that FIFA was a festering cesspool of greed, slime and outright theft.
The world sporting press – all of whom love love love those FIFA press credentials that get yanked if you ask questions – dutifully reported a new era of transparency at FIFA was upon us.
What these teat-sucking scribes either didn't notice or were too afraid of risking their access to mention was that the announcement from FIFA carried this very explicit caveat:
"The new Code of Ethics comes into force immediately and will apply to all future matters. In other words, it will not apply retrospectively."
Put another way, whatever ugliness, corruption, bribery, theft or malfeasance may or may not have occurred at Germany 2006 is not to be considered within the purview of the shiny new Ethics Committee and it's Chairman, Mr. Squeaky Clean. Only stuff that occured after Lord Coe took the reins of this new board would come under his scrutiny.
Seb Coe was the brush and the new Ethics rules were the bucket of whitewash in Blatters' attempt at getting everyone off his ass about Jack Warners' blatant thievery.
And it worked perfectly. The media quickly lost interest in the story. After all, FIFA was cleaning house, right?
Meanwhile, the Warner mess was referred to FIFA's Disciplinary Committee – why that might have been was never explained – which is very much like referring some actual violation of human rights to the UN Human Rights Council. Most of the members are even more guilty than the alleged perpetrators.
Coes' Committee held some meetings, chased down some allegations about stuff like alleged skulduggery in the assigning of referees in Kenya (no, I am not making that up) and, in early 2008, Seb resigned "with President Blatters' permission" (no, I am not making that up) to join the England 2018 committee, a move which – laughably – many people felt assured English success.
Since Coe had played ball with FIFA and basically sold his immense credibility to a corrupt Swiss mobster and his cronies as window dressing on an ugly scandal, surely England would be rewarded. Right?
Right?
Fast forward to today.
The worlds' sporting media is dutifully – even breathlessly – reporting that FIFA President Sepp Blatter, angered, appalled and outraged to find that there is GAMBLING going on in this…..no, wait, by continual allegations of "corruption" in the World Cup bidding process, has announced that he is forming an
ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMITTEE":
"I will take care of it personally, to make sure that there is no corruption at FIFA. This committee will strengthen our credibility and give us a new image in terms of transparency."
Did you get that? Sepp Blatter is going to tackle this corruption thing personally.
Furthermore, this committee will be fast tracked to get right to work.
After the ExCo votes on it.
Next June.
And what do you want to bet that its mandate will be limited to matters which occur "in the future"?
Anyone? I'll give you ten to one.
So essentially the new Anti-Corruption Committee will root out any backroom bribery and vote selling which occurs in the voting process for the 2026 World Cup, which will probably be held in about ten years.
Another triumph for FIFA. The worlds' sports media – including, sadly, all those big name US writers we know and love – will report this wonderful development with straight faces and then send in to have their FIFA credentials renewed.
The sound you hear is Sepp Blatter laughing.
*Apologies to commenters from the other post; I don't know why this double posted and I lost your comments when I tried to straighten it out.
Maybe a FIFA in