Sepp Blatter to quit as Fifa president

The news every football fan wanted to hear .

In announcing his exit, the 79-year-old Swiss has called an extraordinary Fifa congress "as soon as possible" to elect a new president.
Blatter was re-elected last week, despite seven top Fifa officials being arrested two days before the vote as part of a US prosecution.
But he said: "My mandate does not appear to be supported by everybody."
www.bbc.co.uk...

I have a feeling the big sponsors like Visa may have had a quiet word , either way I hope all of the candidates stand again and Fifa becomes the organisation it was meant to be.

this whole corruption scandal is huge, heads of world football arrested under allegations of bribery with a full FBI investigation with lots of other countries involved and the president of FIFA has quite in disgrace.

This stuff really should be all over ATS, football fan or not, this is corruption at the very highest level.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

This stuff really should be all over ATS, football fan or not, this is corruption at the very highest level.

Why? It doesn't effect me at all. I bet it doesn't effect a lot of others either. It seems to me that it would be more important to 'be all over it' with our own governments and their corruption rather than some stupid game commission.
Oh now I've done it! I said stupid game commission! How could I? Well,Rome kept the masses stupid and calm by the gladiator games now didn't they?

a reply to: gortex

GET IN!!!.

originally posted by: Dimithae
a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

This stuff really should be all over ATS, football fan or not, this is corruption at the very highest level.

Why? It doesn't effect me at all. I bet it doesn't effect a lot of others either. It seems to me that it would be more important to 'be all over it' with our own governments and their corruption rather than some stupid game commission.
Oh now I've done it! I said stupid game commission! How could I? Well,Rome kept the masses stupid and calm by the gladiator games now didn't they?

why?

Well one of the big lines of investigation is that world governments have been knowingly paying bribes to the heads of FIFA to gain support in World cup bids. Principally that the South Africans paid for the 2010 world cup and there are very strong suspicions that Russia and Qatar may have also bought their world cup tournaments. This rabbit hole could go very deep it involves a corrupt international cartel who have their figures in a lot more pies than just football.

a reply to: gortex
Most likely so they can quiet things down an avoid what should be coming to them.

He will now go by "Weak Blatter".

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

So?

Let me see if I get this right. The bankers can take our money to bail themselves out,not much of a stink is raised.The government can take our money to bail out the car companies.Again,not much of a stink.The government is talking about taking more pensions. 'Yawn". Nothing seems to get people off their butts to realize how corrupt the governments are,but all of a sudden,there is corruption in a football game,and everyone falls all over themselves crying the sky is falling? You have to be kidding me.

Take a look and tell me if this seems suspicious to you,the corruption and pay offs where okey dokey until Russia won their bid,now with all the stink over Russia and all,we can't let them get away with it right? BECAUSE THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CORRUPTION. It has everything to do with politics.That is all this is. We are mad right now because Russia won't play nice and let us do whatever we want,so we want to rub the dirty little bastards noses in it. Thats all this is. Otherwise,they wouldn't do a thing about it. Heck,games are bought off all the time in the US. I knew a woman whos husband worked for the Cardinals baseball team. Good team right? Well guess what? She said something about being excited about the upcoming game that night,and he told her not to worry,they would lose that game and gave her the results of each game WITH scores all the way till the end of the season. And he was right. They plan out who is going to the world series every year. There is a lot of money to be made for the cities hosting it. It is not left to chance. Its all politics.

There is much more to worry about than if a country paid off someone to get a game or games played on their turf. After all,the people on the commissions learned it from our leaders.

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
this whole corruption scandal is huge, heads of world football arrested under allegations of bribery with a full FBI investigation with lots of other countries involved and the president of FIFA has quite in disgrace.

I agree. I think that someone has shown him a few files in the last few days and he's thought... "I think I'll retire and let someone else clear this mess up".

The fact is that the £ that drives football is gigantic. So big that corruption probably permeates every nook and cranny. If you have corruption at the top then this dribbles down.

BTW I have no interest in football being a Rugby man, but 'nuff said on that.

Correct, politics 101
And don't forget the vote to ban Israel....a reply to: Dimithae

It is good news to hear, however we must be carefull.

I personally think there should be a cancellation of Russia and Qatar wc in 2018 & 2022.

Putin said that the russia bid followed in line with fifa rules and ethics. and considering that there was none. i will leave it for you to decide. (im sure a russian troll might have a different opinion). As for Qatar, too hot and too close to home on the ISIS front to consider travelling.


More club managers as well chould join in, not just the players who some (not all) should wake up and realise the people who have run it have been also ruining it for the past few years.

If they can pull off a euro wide boycott of them clear out any remaining old guard who were complicet in corruption that would be good. however i feel two ledgends of football might get their wings clipped (Pele & Platini) considering their close connection with SB.

considering there were a few resignations allready, people trying to dodge, get out of what a smelly pile of poo it was becoming.

And on a different front the football, which seemed like some sort of side show to FIFA. how long did it take for goal line technology to be rolled out? And how long had the technology like hawk eye been there to allow it?

I enjoy all sports and I am a gooner myself. i also like other sports like rugby, but the FIFA scandal ranks right up there with all the bad things that had recently been happening in cycling with lance armstrong et al.

anyway FIFA had better be careful, otherwise they will think they can revert back to their oldways thinking we are not looking but we will be.

i have spoken to a few people in germany, and they even said that it should not have been awarded to Russia considering football violence over there is quite bad....Heedan. they even said that we should have won considering we had the stadiums.

Anyway Bring football home for 2018 or 2022. We have the stadiums, we have the atmosphere, we have great sporting summers. our transport infrastructure although not tip top, its very much capable to the job and quite modern. and where better to play than the likes of wembley, The Emirates, Old Trafford, St James Park, Anfield, The Etihad or Hackney Marshes.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: SUPERT303

they even said that we should have won considering we had the stadiums.

Oh so that is what your whole issue is.

Got it

a reply to: SUPERT303

Did you know that after the speculation around the 2018 and 2022 bids that FIFA had a investigation conducted that ended up with a 400 page report that they whittled down to 30 pages and the guy that wrote it then resigned saying that FIFA was covering up stuff they did not want made public.

I think everyone really knows that we should have had the 2018 cup in England. I think the good think is that if it is found out that the voting was rigged and that England should have rightfully been given 2018 then they could pull it off without much preparation. I doubt it will happen but i can actually see Qutar losing their bid, just so many problems with them so far and England would be a obvious last minute replacement.

I really don't understand why this topic doesn't make ATS go wild.

Well, in fact I do understand it, considering the disproportionate number of USA citizens on this board, but the world is big, and the (soccer)-balls are round, and a game lasts a full 90 minutes!

Go, FBI!

(Wouldn't think that I would say this anytime, at least on this board!)

I hope he gets jail how can he not know and anyhow he should be held responsible seeing he is the boss.
Time now to scrap the Russian and Qatar world cup and maybe we need to even scrap fifa.

a reply to: gortex

This whole episode is a very good example as to why we should never elect people to these sorts of organisations for more than one term. When people make careers out of being representative on these bodies they are interested in nothing more than staying on the right side of the right people so they can get re-elected again.

Carry this across into politics and don't ever elect a politician for more than one term cos you will become the last person they are concerned about.

Last night on Australian television there was a show about how the workers building the new stadium in the mind east are being exploited, safety on the job is so bad that almost 200 workers a killed each year in these places.

a reply to: boymonkey74

I think its a bit late to scrap the Russian World Cup but Qatar should be informed that their tournament is canceled and up for re-bid.
I'd be more than happy to see the end of Fifa , I think it's tarnished beyond repair so a new governing body should be created with greater transparency and accountability to member nations.

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
I really don't understand why this topic doesn't make ATS go wild.

Well, in fact I do understand it, considering the disproportionate number of USA citizens on this board

Now that's a rather ignorant statement isn't it?

What does this have to do with anything? Especially considering that the investigation after all ORIGINATED IN THE USA.

We are huge football fans over here and back our teams:






Didn't you watch the last two World Cups??

2010


2014



We in the USA, as a nation, took more people to Brazil's World Cup last summer any other:




The US men's national team may not be the best in the world but it will give any of the big powers a good game and at times best them (just ask England or Portugal or Germany, Spain or Italy for that matter).




More to the point...


This whole investigation probably originated after Bill Clinton destroyed his hotel room rock star style when the USA lost it's 2022 World Cup Bid to the corrupt process that awarded it to Qatar.

The club I support in my city of Seattle averages between 40,000-50,000 per match putting us as the 27th best supported club in a world of thousands of professional football clubs.

Compared to World: Seattle’s average attendance ranked 27th in the world and second highest among teams not located in Europe. In 2014, an average of 43,734 fans would have ranked sixth in the Barclays Premier League, fifth in Spain’s La Liga and second in Italy’s Serie A. The graph shows the five highest average attendance marks in 2014.

Our domestic league is in the Top 10 in world attendance as well (even above Brazil):



So stop with the "US people don't care about football". Yeah if they're like over 60 maybe...

We "Millennials" and Gen-Xers most certainly care.

So yeah, the FIFA story -IS- huge for us and lack of talk here probably has nothing to do with the amount of us yanks on ATS. I probably has more to do with the fact ATS is not a huge gathering spot for discussion of sports conspiracies. I had no idea there even were sports forums here on ATS until last summer's World Cup.

There's plenty of conversation about it on ESPN FC, Fox Sports 1 and on football/soccer blogs and forums in the USA.


So yeah, DENY IGNORANCE indeed.

a reply to: JadeStar

Hi JadeStar,

Great info there, didn't know a lot of it (call it ignorance, as we in Europe are constantly told to be the biggest soccerfans all over the world, yes, thank you MSM)!

Its kind of patriotism, at least the most patriotic thing we feel over here

And yes, your point of "sports ain't the thing for ATS" might be point blanc, but the FIFA should really be in ATS's alley, I think.

New revelations indicate that South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki is suspected of paying a bribe to Fifa of $10 million to host the World Cup and this is the hub of the investigation.

The payment, which South Africa denies was a bribe to secure the 2010 World Cup, is central to the Fifa scandal.
The claim comes after a letter emerged that appears to show officials seeking an indirect route for the transfer.
South Africa's government said the letter did not contradict its statement that this was a legitimate payment.
www.bbc.co.uk...

This could start getting messy , and I don't mean Lionel