FIFA President Sepp Blatter speaks during a press conference at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, Tuesday, June 2, 2015. Sepp Blatter says he will resign from his position amid corruption scandal and is promising to call for fresh elections to choose a successor. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP) ORG XMIT: LON818(Photo: Ennio Leanza, ap)
Even at the moment of his final defeat on Tuesday, Sepp Blatter couldn't give up the bluster and spin and that insufferable habit of painting himself as the hero.
Blatter is going, going and soon to be gone as president of FIFA, no longer able to either idly sit by while soccer's governing body wreaks mass-scale corruption or directly involved in it himself, depending on who you believe.
Just four days after pumping his fists and celebrating re-election to a fifth term in power, a humbled Blatter announced at a hastily convened press conference Zurich that he was, at last, climbing down from his ivory tower just as the United States government's investigation into FIFA shifts into high gear.
Change is coming, shifts that may shake the game to its very foundations, lead to a new leadership structure at FIFA and potentially alter the destination of future World Cups, including that ludicrous decision to take the thing to Qatar in 2022.
Meanwhile, rumor and conjecture swirled on Tuesday, primarily due to the timing and nature of the announcement. Blatter, 79, went into his shell in the days following Friday's election victory over Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan. Some senior FIFA officials did not even know the bombshell was coming.
Investigative journalist Andrew Jennings, who has sought to expose Blatter and his system for years, and who claims to have given the FBI the information that sparked last week's indictments against nine senior FIFA members, suggested the possibility that Blatter may already be co-operating with the Justice Department.
Two U.S. officials told USA TODAY that Blatter is part of the government's overall investigation. The officials are not authorized to comment publicly because the probe is ongoing.
Was any of it, all the derision from across the globe and the approaching footsteps of serious legal authorities with serious power and supreme confidence enough to take the swagger out of Blatter's step?
Well, he was humbled enough to admit that while he had the backing of the majority of 209 bureaucrats and cronies within FIFA's antiquated and hopelessly flawed elective structure, that support was totally absent among the hundreds of millions who play, follow and put their hard earned money into the game.
Yet he was still not humbled enough to be able to resist portraying himself as the great reformer, undertaking the most noble course of action for the good of the game.
"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," Blatter said, referring to fresh presidential elections that will likely take place in the early part of next year.
So wait a minute, the president of FIFA wasn't free to clean house until he announced his resignation? Financial clarity and internal investigation couldn't possibly have been a part of his election campaign?
Of course not, a skeptic might say. Far too many skeletons, in far too many closets, in far too many countries, for that.
If you thought the kind of farewell tours that athletes approaching retirement undertake from time to time are nauseating, wait until you see the closing stanzas of the Sepp show. It will be ugly, it will be stage-managed and it will ask you to suspend belief and reason and possibly, mountains of evidence from the U.S. legal authorities.
Blatter will try to make you believe that instead of being the overlord of a bleak period where the beautiful game dove headlong into an ugly pit of greed and alleged criminality, his legacy will be that of the man who allowed it to reform.
Don't believe it, not a word of it.
The truth may take some time to fully come out, but don't believe for a second that Blatter will move aside in a gesture of pure and unfettered self-sacrifice. He fought too hard, for too long, to cling onto power for that.
Maybe it was the thinly veiled hints from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the FBI and those involved in the investigation that there is a lot more scandal to be unearthed.
Maybe Blatter got wind of the support even within FIFA's corridors of power that his long-held support was eroding, almost daily.
But it wasn't this.
"I have been reflecting deeply about my presidency and about the 40 years in which my life has been inextricably bound to FIFA and the great sport of football," Blatter said. "I cherish FIFA more than anything and I want to do only what is best for FIFA and for football. I felt compelled to stand for re-election, as I believed that this was the best thing for the organization. That election is over but FIFA's challenges are not. FIFA needs a profound overhaul."
The only part of Blatter's farewell that has any credence was its final phrase. FIFA does indeed need an overhaul, it has needed one for a long time.
And an overhaul is coming, not thanks to Sepp Blatter but in spite of him and as a result of the culture he allowed to infiltrate the sport's highest reaches.
Even at the moment of his final defeat on Tuesday, Sepp Blatter couldn't give up the bluster and spin and that insufferable habit of painting himself as the hero.
Blatter is going, going and soon to be gone as president of FIFA, no longer able to either idly sit by while soccer's governing body wreaks mass-scale corruption or directly involved in it himself, depending on who you believe.
Just four days after pumping his fists and celebrating re-election to a fifth term in power, a humbled Blatter announced at a hastily convened press conference Zurich that he was, at last, climbing down from his ivory tower just as the United States government's investigation into FIFA shifts into high gear.
Change is coming, shifts that may shake the game to its very foundations, lead to a new leadership structure at FIFA and potentially alter the destination of future World Cups, including that ludicrous decision to take the thing to Qatar in 2022.
Meanwhile, rumor and conjecture swirled on Tuesday, primarily due to the timing and nature of the announcement. Blatter, 79, went into his shell in the days following Friday's election victory over Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan. Some senior FIFA officials did not even know the bombshell was coming.
Investigative journalist Andrew Jennings, who has sought to expose Blatter and his system for years, and who claims to have given the FBI the information that sparked last week's indictments against nine senior FIFA members, suggested the possibility that Blatter may already be co-operating with the Justice Department.
Two U.S. officials told USA TODAY that Blatter is part of the government's overall investigation. The officials are not authorized to comment publicly because the probe is ongoing.
Was any of it, all the derision from across the globe and the approaching footsteps of serious legal authorities with serious power and supreme confidence enough to take the swagger out of Blatter's step?
Well, he was humbled enough to admit that while he had the backing of the majority of 209 bureaucrats and cronies within FIFA's antiquated and hopelessly flawed elective structure, that support was totally absent among the hundreds of millions who play, follow and put their hard earned money into the game.
Yet he was still not humbled enough to be able to resist portraying himself as the great reformer, undertaking the most noble course of action for the good of the game.
"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," Blatter said, referring to fresh presidential elections that will likely take place in the early part of next year.
So wait a minute, the president of FIFA wasn't free to clean house until he announced his resignation? Financial clarity and internal investigation couldn't possibly have been a part of his election campaign?
Of course not, a skeptic might say. Far too many skeletons, in far too many closets, in far too many countries, for that.
If you thought the kind of farewell tours that athletes approaching retirement undertake from time to time are nauseating, wait until you see the closing stanzas of the Sepp show. It will be ugly, it will be stage-managed and it will ask you to suspend belief and reason and possibly, mountains of evidence from the U.S. legal authorities.
Blatter will try to make you believe that instead of being the overlord of a bleak period where the beautiful game dove headlong into an ugly pit of greed and alleged criminality, his legacy will be that of the man who allowed it to reform.
Don't believe it, not a word of it.
The truth may take some time to fully come out, but don't believe for a second that Blatter will move aside in a gesture of pure and unfettered self-sacrifice. He fought too hard, for too long, to cling onto power for that.
Maybe it was the thinly veiled hints from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the FBI and those involved in the investigation that there is a lot more scandal to be unearthed.
Maybe Blatter got wind of the support even within FIFA's corridors of power that his long-held support was eroding, almost daily.
But it wasn't this.
"I have been reflecting deeply about my presidency and about the 40 years in which my life has been inextricably bound to FIFA and the great sport of football," Blatter said. "I cherish FIFA more than anything and I want to do only what is best for FIFA and for football. I felt compelled to stand for re-election, as I believed that this was the best thing for the organization. That election is over but FIFA's challenges are not. FIFA needs a profound overhaul."
The only part of Blatter's farewell that has any credence was its final phrase. FIFA does indeed need an overhaul, it has needed one for a long time.
And an overhaul is coming, not thanks to Sepp Blatter but in spite of him and as a result of the culture he allowed to infiltrate the sport's highest reaches.
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