Analysis
Recently the news broke out that the president of the most powerful Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), Sepp Blatter announced that he will be stepping down from office after overseeing the affairs of the world body for 16 years.

The news may not have come to many soccer analysts as a surprise given the mirage of criticism that has trailed the activities of the organization in recent years especially with regards to the manner the body awarded the hosting right for the 2018 and 2022 editions of the global fiesta.

BRAZIL, Costa do Sauipe : Fifa president Joseph Blatter gestures during a press conference in Costa do Sauipe, state of Bahia, Brazil on December 3, 2013. The 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil final draw will take place December 6. AFP PHOTO

However the only thing that was a bit hazy was why Blatter had to take the hard decision just few days after winning another mandate to run the body for the next four years. But this nevertheless goes to show that what the Swiss born administrator has been doing was damage control.

There has been a lot of corruption allegation leveled against FIFA for a very long time but each time Blatter who is said to worth over $20 million dollars has a way of shoving that aside or at worst sacrifice any member of his exclusive executive committee.

But the bubble began to burst last week during the elective congress of the 209 members of FIFA where Swiss police pounced and arrested seven members of the body in a hotel in Switzerland on alleged corruption charges. The development began the beginning of the end as most of the delegates called for the postponement of the election but the adamant Blatter insisted on going ahead with the polls.

Expectedly he easily defeated his only challenger, Mohammed Ibn Hamman pulling over 130 votes. Despite that controversial reelection, Blatter who had been in FIFA for about 40 years said he was not going to step down because doing so will suggest that he was aware of the corruption and bribery issues ravaging the body. He also promised to stay put to rebuild confidence in FIFA and that he was poised to handover a FIFA that will have the trust and confidence of every stakeholder.

Even as Blatter has announced his resignation, he should not stay in office for one more day because since the organization he ran for over 16 years is under such scrutiny, he does not have the moral grounds to remain in office to organize the election that will produce his successor. Secondly he had said that resigning will mean he knows something about the massive corruption in FIFA so now that he has resigned, it then means that he really knows something and if properly quizzed, will begin to sing.

But reviewing the whole issues with regards to what have happened in many countries especially Nigeria where FIFA was elevated to the position of the angels that cannot sin. In Nigeria the fear of FIFA was really the beginning of wisdom for any government as any attempt to ask the affiliate body the NFF questions on its activities was always interpreted to be government interference in the administration of the beautiful game.

I recall the crisis that rocked the then Nigeria Football Association (NFA) under the chairmanship of Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima which was unarguably the genesis of the crisis that has continued to rock the nation’s football after every four years. Expectedly FIFA was called in and after a lot of scheming here and there, it was agreed that a meeting would be held by the congress to determine whether the then disputed Kano elections will stand or repeated.

Then FIFA General Secretary, Urs Linsi was on hand to monitor the congress which was now brought to Abuja. And it was very amazing, that Linsi contrary to the electoral rules of FIFA, allowed the then federal government officials to determine the way forward by asking people to indicate by raising their hands instead of the usual open secret balloting which FIFA allows. As typical when the heat became too much, Urs Linsi was sacrificed.

But many people have been questioning why FIFA was so bold to breathe down on sovereign nations so much so that the president of FIFA could be said to be the most influential person in the world. Wherever he goes he dines and wines with world leaders yet any attempt by these governments to know how the same federations they were funding were running was described as interference.

The truth is that over the years, most if not all the members of the executive committee of the word body were involved in one messy deal or the other especially when it comes to the hosting rights for world cup tournaments.

Nigeria must have been a goldmine for the corrupt FIFA officials who were always here to inspect the facilities meant for the hosting of FIFA tournaments. I recall the buildup to the Nigeria 2009 World U-17 championship where the ‘almighty’ Jack Warner who was the head of the inspection team praised the Bauchi stadium as one of the best in the world.

But interestingly, the same Warner had after his first visit about a week earlier ruled out the stadium as not meeting with the minimum standards. Till today most soccer analysts are still confused on what made Warner to make the sudden change.

I hope that the Nigerian government which I will say has been a big victim of the undue FIFA intimidation and harassment over the years should join forces with the countries that are unmasking FIFA because the way of doing business with the global soccer body will never be the same again.

People so manipulated the system with the name of FIFA so much so that at a point we saw a letter purportedly written by FIFA with a Nigerian telephone dialing code. Investigations later revealed that the letters could be written by anybody who wants to manipulate the system, sent to Zurich and the relevant signature would be appended to it.

It got so irritating that at a point it was like FIFA was established only for Nigeria because in two days you could be inundated with as much as three different letters from FIFA threatening a whole sovereign nation because of the so called government interference. Little did we know that the same thing that could be interpreted to be interference n Nigeria may not be interference in Switzerland?

We expect to hear of more intrigues from the mystery house of FIFA as the days go by.