America’s FIFA.

Retirement Home.

Giggle.

Blatter just quit.

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NO SEPP BLATTER ANYMORE

There you go and FIFA here am I
Well you left me here so I could sit and cry
Golly gee what have you done to me
Well you ain’t got Sepp Blatter anymore

Now you go your way baby and I’ll go mine
Now and forever ’till the end of time
I’ll bribe somebody new and baby
We’ll say we’re through
No Sepp Blatter anymore

Blatter, sitting in an upright position, opens the envelope. What dexterity. It’s Blatter again, walking into a meeting, left foot first, then the right, knotting his necktie as he goes. A cool customer, this Blatter. Now sipping his drink, now negotiating with Horst Dassler of Adidas, back and forth and …

GOOOOOL!!!

Empty stadia, kickbacks, and Blatter:
What to do now that FIFA’s in tatters?
“For our very next step,
We will re-elect Sepp!
Every tea party needs a Mad Hatter.”

Ian Buruma:

Western businessmen, architects, artists, university presidents and museum directors – or anyone who needs large amounts of cash to fund their expensive projects – now have to deal with non-Western autocrats… [P]andering to authoritarian regimes and opaque business interests is not a wholesome enterprise. The contemporary alliance of Western interests – in the arts and higher education no less than in sports – with rich, undemocratic powers involves compromises that might easily damage established reputations.

One way to deflect the attention is to borrow the old anti-imperialist rhetoric of the left. Dealing with despots and shady tycoons is no longer venal, but noble. Selling the franchise of a university or a museum to a Gulf state, building yet another enormous stadium in China or making a fortune out of soccer favours to Russia or Qatar, is progressive, anti-racist and a triumph of global fraternity and universal values.

… due to mercenary incontinence.

… but the ridicule to which he is subjected that does him in.

The Clinic, a Chilean satirical magazine … ran popular internet memes on its website showing photoshopped images of Blatter in jail, Fifa as a mafia organisation, Maradona giving it the finger and the Uruguayan president, José Mujica, describing Fifa as a “manga de viejos hijos de puta” (a bunch of old bastards).

This came closer to capturing the mood on the streets, in stadiums and on social networks, where chatter was more of the nature of “At last!” and “The bastards had it coming!”

On Twitter, the Brazilian commentator Xico Sá called for a minute of noise at Thursday’s football matches to celebrate the arrests.

This is fun.

I hope Blatter has his Ceaucescu moment in public. Like Ceaucescu.

The FIFA thing is happening Way Over There, Way Over Yonder, Way Way Far Away from little New Zealand over here in the far opposite corner… Nothing to see here… We haven’t even gotten the Morse Code clicks on the thing yet… What are you talking about…

One Swiss lawmaker calling for [Swiss non-profit laws] reform has noted contemptuously that that a multibillion-dollar global organization like FIFA “still has the same status as a Swiss mountain village yodeling association.”

… sell their universities to corporations run serious risks.

International soccer’s governing body has always been a punchline for corruption in sports. They make the NCAA look like UNICEF.

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Yes, my dear little brothers in sport, our retreat last week was all about this primary fact: We stink to high heaven.

What will we do about it?

Nothing.

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I mean, look up there. Two posts up. Headline Among the Company’s Expenses…

Do you seriously expect us to fuck with that?

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Sweetie, I hear you. But it’s too late to get rid of the scum. And our next President, Rick Perry, wouldn’t hear of it.

My best advice to you: Try to get a job at a school that’s not a sports factory. There are plenty of fine colleges and universities in this country.

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Another comparison.

“[P]rotecting and enhancing the integrity of intercollegiate athletics” … is the equivalent …of upholding the gold standard of the government of Somalia.

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And never forget who’s running the show.

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“It’s a circus. And the NCAA is running behind the elephants with shovels.”

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College football and men’s basketball are multi-billion-dollar businesses being run as an illegal cartel. So don’t say Congress or the President shouldn’t be “wasting time” on sports.

If the President and Congress make it clear to the university presidents that the system is completely unacceptable and they will lose all the tax breaks they currently enjoy if they do not do a complete tear-down, that will force action.

It sounds impossible. So did going to the moon. Sometimes you need to attempt the impossible. Especially when the current situation is completely sickening to witness.