Headlines
Can Blatter's shock resignation rescue his FIFA legacy?
Zurich, June 3
Not even the most hopeful of outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter's critics could have seen it coming this soon.
On
Friday, Blatter was re-elected for a fifth straight mandate as the
president of world football's governing body, reports Xinhua.
When
he delivered his cheerful victory speech to FIFA's executive committee,
he vowed "age would be no barrier" in his quest to steer "the ship back
to the beach" amid a corruption scandal that has shaken the
organisation to its very core.
But the new four-year term barely lasted four days.
Blatter
looked every bit his 79 years on Tuesday as he hunched over a prepared
statement at FIFA's headquarters here to announce his resignation from
the sport's most senior position.
"While I have a mandate from
the membership of FIFA, I do not feel that I have a mandate from the
entire world of football - the fans, the players, the clubs, the people
who live, breathe and love football as much as we all do at FIFA,"
Blatter said.
He added that a request for an extraordinary
meeting of FIFA's executive committee would be made at "the earliest
opportunity" so that a successor could be elected.
Unsurprisingly,
the announcement was prime social media fodder. The underlying message
that swept Twitter and Facebook news feeds was "goodbye and good
riddance" to a man whose popularity among football fans has ebbed to new
lows over the past week.
But there were also words of praise;
even from one of his most outspoken critics, by European football's
governing body, UEFA president Michel Platini.
"It was a difficult decision, a brave decision, and the right decision," he said on Tuesday.
Many questioned the timing of the announcement. Why now, just days after he spoke so defiantly about his next term in charge?
The answer could lie in the myriad graft allegations leveled against his colleagues.
Blatter
was not named in an indictment by America's Department of Justice last
week that accused 14 people - including seven top football officials -
of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.
He has
repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, saying it was impossible for him to
monitor the actions of every official from each of FIFA's six
confederations.
But it is clear he has felt the heat of developments over the past few days.
None
of those developments has been more significant than explosive
allegations in the New York Times that FIFA secretary general and
Blatter's right-hand man, Jerome Valcke, was involved in wire transfers
of bribe money for World Cup bids.
Valcke denied the accusation, as did FIFA in an official statement on Tuesday.
But
for Blatter, who has fought off allegations of corruption since taking
office in 1998, the claims meant the scandal has now reached his inner
circle. Pressure from FIFA's major sponsors is also likely to have
played a part in Blatter's decision.
It took about an hour after Tuesday's announcement for Coca-Cola to issue a statement endorsing the move.
Blatter
is also understood to have been urged to step down by his family,
especially daughter Corinne. Whatever the underlying reason for his
about-turn, the process to elect his successor will not be so swift.
FIFA
statutes require four months' notice for elections to be held, meaning
Blatter is likely to remain in the job at least until the end of the
year.
It is long enough, he says, to set the wheels in motion for structural change at FIFA.
"Since
I shall not be a candidate, and am therefore now free from the
constraints that elections inevitably impose, I shall be able to focus
on driving far-reaching, fundamental reforms that transcend our previous
efforts," he said.
A few months will not allow him to rid FIFA
of all its ills. But there is hope that, with his legacy at stake, it
might just be long enough for Blatter to write a bright addendum to what
is already one of the darkest periods in football's history.