Surely the salient question raised by the scandal of Fifa Secretary General Jerome Valcke and the World Cup tickets is what was he doing in the job at all?
You may remember that when he was not in such an exalted position, he and the grotesque Chuck Blazer – he too was implicated deeply in corruption – appeared in a New York court on behalf of Fifa, trying to wrest the rights for the ensuing World Cup away from the holders MasterCard in favour of Visa. The woman judge scornfully threw out their case and accused them both of lying.
Valcke then flew back to Zurich and was briefly suspended. But in no time at all the smoke cleared and he was promoted to his present role. That was shocking enough, but the worst of it, arguably, was that not a peep of protest came from anywhere. No national association or federation deemed it apposite to criticise such a ludicrous and perverse promotion. Our own Football Association was among the totality of ruling bodies which had nothing to say or to object.
Which alas takes us to the abysmal phenomenon of Joao Havelange, in fact a far more serious and quite inexplicable case, that this greedy, corrupt and rapacious man remaining President of Fifa for no fewer than 24 years. By comparison, Valcke’s alleged offence, conspiring so profitably with one Benny Alon of JB Sports Marketing to flog World Cup tickets for as much as five times their value, seems almost trivial.
It isn’t of course: far from it. But the outrage of the offence itself surely knocks one more nail into Sepp Blatter’s coffin. How, in the name of good sense and morality could he have promoted Valcke after his humiliation in that New York court?
And to reiterate, how could the football authorities at large remain silent and unconcerned.
